


the washington royals

by screamlet



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-02 23:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10230905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: Sasha doesn’t remember the very first time he met Nicky, but Michael Nylander is kind enough to remind them when he arrives to meet the team, carrying an honest to fuck laminated newspaper clipping of the first time Prince Alexander visited Sweden to meet his future husband, Prince Nicklas.*An arranged marriage—or, an arrangement and a marriage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \+ inspired by [this photo](http://thornescratch.tumblr.com/post/134530361178/).  
> \+ idk if i need to say this, but ovi and nicky were born in 1985 and 1987, respectively, so the pop culture references and tech in the story ages with them. _once, they used landlines_.  
>  \+ i wrote huge sections of this blasting carly rae jepsen's [run away with me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE2qEpkWWoQ).

**SASHA**

In Sasha’s earliest memory, his brother carried him through the palace. It was New Year’s Eve and Seryozha was much older, eighteen or nineteen to Sasha’s four or five—big enough to put Sasha on his hip and walk him around the quiet parts of the palace while the party roared on all night. Sasha didn’t remember how long they were away from the party; he remembered his head on Seryozha’s shoulder as they walked towards an open balcony where Misha and Mama and Papa were waiting. 

Sasha opened his eyes again to the crowd outside the palace, the glow of Moscow beyond them, a sudden huge cheer and bells ringing. Seryozha held him tighter and pointed up at the fireworks above them. Sasha could remember feeling the deep rumble of his voice. “Aren’t they beautiful? Look at them. Wow. Look how beautiful.” Seryozha held him tighter because it was cold. Sasha could still see the glow of the city and the new year as his eyes slipped closed again.

*

In 2007, Nicky was new to the team, but not to the boys. Nicky had visited Washington every spring after his team’s playoff run, just in time to see the end of the Capitals’ regular season. Now it was 2007 and Nicky had arrived in the changing room, not for the very first time but for the first time as a Capital in his own right. 

This was a first time for them, everyone knew that. Sasha doesn’t remember the very first time he met Nicky, but Michael Nylander is kind enough to remind them when he arrives to meet the team, too, carrying an honest to fuck laminated newspaper clipping of the first time Prince Alexander visited Sweden to meet his future husband, Prince Nicklas.

“Uh, we need a projector in here, like, now, like now now now now,” Mike Green announced. “I seriously can’t fucking EMPHASIZE how much we NEED a fucking PROJECTOR. OH MY _GOD_. I want to buy a billboard and put this picture on there. No, like. Five billboards. _Ten_.”

“Greenie, just shut up,” said Nicky. He had his arms wrapped around himself, looking embarrassed and fond and murderous at the amount of _noise_ Mike insisted on making. Greenie was up from Hershey when Nicky visited each spring and Nicky had instantly taken a shine to him, to Sasha’s immense relief—Nicky had managed to make a single fucking friend in his future home, so Sasha could file that worry away, for a while. 

“Can I touch this?” Mike asked as he took the laminated clipping from Nylander. “Is this like a sacred relic in Sweden? Did you have to ask permission to take it out of the country? Oh my god, does Nick’s baby onesie have a Tre Kronor on his tiny baby prince _butt_?”

“No,” Nicky scoffed. “That’s not—”

Nicky looked at Sasha with his face crumpled into that too-familiar _why are we so fucking embarrassing_ look of his. 

Brooks pried the relic out of Mike’s hands, examined it for a moment, then passed it to the person farthest from Nicky, because Brooks was much smarter than his juicing and exercise suggested. “Alex looks so happy to meet the infant his country’s coerced him into marrying.”

“Coerced?” Nicky asked. “Yeah, okay. You coerce Sasha into something, Brooks. I’ll wait.”

“I mean, come on,” Brooks said. “It’s cute, you guys grew up together, but it’s not like you chose each other.”

Nylander found his newspaper clip again and tucked it into his pocket. As he did so, he caught Nicky’s attention (and Sasha’s, even if he didn’t know it) and asked in Swedish, “Who the hell is this guy and why is he talking like that about you?” 

Nicky shrugged and left the conversation for their team meeting in another room. 

“Hey, Backy, I’m sorry,” Brooks called after him. He looked to Sasha, then, like apologizing to him would earn him Nicky’s forgiveness by proxy. (Sasha could soften the edges, a little, but Nicky’s forgiveness had to be chiseled from a mountain no one had discovered yet.) “I didn’t mean that. What the fuck do I know about how royalty works?”

Sasha put an arm around Brooks’s neck and playfully dragged him out of the changing room, down the hall to their team meeting. “Don’t worry, it’s just Nicky. But we did choose each other.” He let Brooks go and looked at him seriously. “You think either of us left our countries and came here, and did all this, like we didn’t want it? You think we followed each other our whole lives _without_ choosing each other?”

Nicky was sitting in the players’ seats, nearly the first one there, while the coaches were gathered in a corner preparing for their meeting. Sasha pointlessly climbed on the fold-out chairs and followed them to where Nicky was sitting.

“Left side or right?” he asked, standing on a chair above Nicky. 

Nicky nodded to his left. Sasha carefully stepped onto the seat to Nicky’s left and then dropped into his chair.

“That’s right, Ovi, break your ass in a contract year,” called out one of their coaches. 

Sasha put his arm around the back of Nicky’s chair and shook his head. “No one understands us,” he said in Swedish. He pulled away a little so he could see Nicky’s face, really look at it and gauge his annoyance levels. “Are you mad about what he said?” Sasha asked. “It’s always these Canadians thinking they know us better than we know us.” 

“You’ve played here for two years, and I visited you for weeks every spring. They _know us_ ,” Nicky continued in Swedish. “Have they been thinking that the whole time? Our evil families and governments trapped us in a marriage and we’re only here in America so we can escape horrible old-fashioned Europe? Do they—” Nicky seemed to change his mind about how he would finish that thought, so he pressed himself closer to Sasha and focused on the front of the room where absolutely nothing was happening. 

“It’s all right, we’ve heard worse,” Sasha said. “Like from your mother! God, I hope she lives forever.” 

Nicky was quietly fuming in that way he had, so Sasha checked his texts with one hand and stroked Nicky’s arm with the other. 

“I just don’t understand,” Nicky snapped. “Do I have to fuck you on center ice with candles and rose petals before these assholes believe I love you?” 

_That_ caught people’s attention, because the room had filled out a bit since Sasha had absorbed all of Nicky’s attention and Nicky had said that in English, with none of the gentle quiet that he usually carried around the team.

“Shit,” Nicky said, still in English.

“Nick, I’m sorry,” Brooks said from a row or two behind them. “That wasn’t a good thing to say, and I’m sorry I said it. I didn’t mean anything against your relationship.”

“It’s fine,” Nicky said. “Stop apologizing or I’ll call a sea monster to eat your whole fucking family.” 

Sasha turned around in his seat and shrugged at Brooks. “He controls the seas, I only have bears,” Sasha said. “It’s all very difficult for us.”

Their coaches gave the three of them a look so they would shut up. Nicky pressed his leg firmly against Sasha’s, forcing himself to take up as much space as he could. Sasha gripped Nicky’s shoulder and skimmed a thumb along the edge of his t-shirt, the two of them mustering as much interest as they could manage. 

*

It was 2007 and the Capitals’ management didn’t want Sasha, a 22-year-old professional hockey player and actual motherfucking _prince of Russia_ , to buy his future husband a house.

George McPhee, who had hosted Sasha in his house for Sasha’s first two seasons in Washington, had invited Nicky over to his house for dinner and for this Little Chat between the three of them. “Take it from me,” George said carefully. “You don’t want to rush into this.”

Nicky and Sasha’s eyes met and, to Sasha’s relief, they had the exact same _what is this fucking bullshit_ _nonsense_ expressions on their faces. 

“We lived together in Moscow,” Sasha said. “Two seasons, when Nicky was sixteen and seventeen and we played for Dynamo, we lived in our own house in Moscow with my brother. We’ve lived together every summer for our whole lives, George. He’s finally here in Washington—why wouldn’t we have our own house?”

George nodded thoughtfully, but he looked very much like Nicky’s brother Kris, the older and more responsible brother of the House of Backstrom and heir apparent to the Swedish crown. George tented his fingers in front of his mouth as, just like Kris, he tried to find the right way to tell Nicky and Sasha that they were absolutely forbidden from doing what they were going to do anyway.

“It’s one thing, you know, to be—to be a prince,” George said. “And to be in the public eye your whole life, with this—this relationship you have with Nick—with each other. But it’s another to—it’s just that in the United States, we—”

Nicky shocked them both by laughing, this harsh and ugly thing that Sasha knew wasn’t going anywhere even remotely good. Nicky looked at Sasha and said, in Swedish, “We can be royalty, engaged royalty, _married_ royalty, but we can’t actually admit we fuck.” Nicky had that smile again, the one that would only lead to terrible things. “Do we love America yet?”

Sasha sighed deeply and rested a hand on the back of Nicky’s neck, for whatever comfort that was worth. “Can we get an apartment?” Sasha asked George. “Maybe something downtown because we’re so used to Moscow and… Washington is the capital of America?”

George considered it, his eyes resting on Nicky more than they did on Sasha. Nicky, for the first time in his blessed life, said nothing; they both had an excellent grasp on dealing with difficult people and the media, but Nicky still had this trick of digging his own grave with sarcasm and Sasha was always the one to pull him out. 

“If you’re happy with that, I’m happy with that,” George said. 

“We are,” Sasha said before Nicky could say anything. 

“I’m glad we understand each other,” George said. “It’s getting late and there’s an early practice tomorrow morning, so drive home safe, Nick, okay? And remember, you’re always welcome to dinner here. I’ll leave you boys alone to say goodnight to each other.” 

Nicky waited until George had left Sasha’s basement room before he looked directly at Sasha with both his eyebrows raised as high as they could go.

“He’s a good man,” Sasha said.

“He’s going to make sure at least one of the papers talks about our crazy party lifestyle in Moscow, and that’s why when I got here we needed to find a fuck palace in the city,” Nicky replied. 

“A _fuck palace_ ,” Sasha said. “Prince Nicklas. What did you get up to while I was away?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading about it while we’re trying to win some fucking games and go to sleep in the same bed every night,” Nicky said. “Are you and I even allowed to be roommates on the road? Greenie said they’re gonna make him room with some old guy on the road, even if he played like sixty games with you guys last year.” 

Sasha sighed and led Nicky to his bed so they could at least hold each other for a while before Nicky returned to his own basement apartment in the next suburb. They both had been aware of NHL players discouraged from living alone in their first season; Nicky had put up with the indignity of living in someone else’s basement for one week, but apparently _two_ was fucking pushing it. 

“Maybe I’ll move in with the Nylanders,” Nicky said. “At least they’re Swedish. Do you think they’d mind a seventh child?”

“Why? Did you bring one with you from Moscow? Is that why you were so fine living without me last season? Did you send the baby off to be secretly fostered away from us, until the day we can claim him or her with a crown?”

“What are you talking about?” Nicky pushed Sasha into bed and curled up around him, his body relaxing against Sasha like he was ready to sleep all night. “America’s made you so much more irritating.” 

“See if I find us a downtown fuck palace now.”

“If it’s not the White House, I’m not interested.” 

“I’ll look into it, okay? They won’t mind some foreigners moving into one of their spare rooms, would they?” 

“Sounds perfect,” Nicky sighed. “Now be quiet so I can pretend I didn’t realize I fell asleep here all night.” 

That was that, Sasha thought, so he pulled the sheets over them and rested his hand in Nicky’s hair until he nodded off, too. 

*

George wasn’t _that_ upset when Nicky was at breakfast the next morning; Nicky was adorable when he was sleepy, and they were on time for their early practice, so that was two points in their favor. Even better was when, after practice, Nicky announced within earshot of their coaches that he and Greenie had plans, so he couldn’t come over to Sasha’s and play video games on their free afternoon.

Before he and Greenie left, Nicky sidled up to Sasha. “Keep your phone on, okay?”

“I have plans, too, you know,” Sasha said. It was a lie, and now he had to invent a reason to drag Alex Semin out for a late lunch and do something wildly interesting he could text Nicky about later, before Greenie ran too far with the idea that he was the most exciting person in Nicky’s life.

Those wildly interesting plans did manifest, but not exactly how Sasha planned. Instead, Nicky’s number lit up Sasha’s phone while he was still out having lunch with Alex Semin.

“Are you still downtown? How soon can you come to Arlington?” Nicky asked.

“Nicky, what did you do?” Sasha asked. Across the table, Syoma leaned in because gossip was gossip and royal gossip was _hilarious_. 

“Greenie found a house and I may have made an offer,” Nicky said. “So… come to Arlington? I’ll text you the address.”

“How does _Greenie_ know what we want for—oh, fucking forget it, why do I ask stupid questions when I already know the stupid answer,” Sasha said. “I’ll be there soon, but I’m bringing Syoma with me.”

“Oh, good, Sanja,” Alex said. “Thank you! I didn’t have a life to live today.” 

Sasha hung up and glared at him. “Quiet, bad Sasha, your country needs you.”

Nicky texted an address that was twenty-five minutes away, a tense twenty-five minutes where Sasha wondered what on fucking earth America had done to his mostly level-headed almost-husband in the short time he had lived here. 

“Oh,” Syoma said as they came closer. “You didn’t tell me the Prince of Sweden has just bought you a house in _my_ development. Great. There goes the fucking neighborhood.”

“It’s fine,” Sasha said. “He’s under a lot of stress, moving here, living with strangers—”

“You better not ruin my trips to McDonald’s.”

“What? What does McDonald’s have to do with anything?”

“I’m just saying, if I start to see reporters at McDonald’s when I’m trying to eat away my hangovers, I’ll bring them to your house and make you suffer with me.”

It didn’t take much to find the house, considering Greenie was piggybacking Nicky around on the street, Nicky waving when he spotted Sasha’s car. 

“You’re not worried Mikey’s going to steal your husband?” Syoma asked. “I’d be worried.”

“I literally own a country,” Sasha said.

“Yes, but Greenie’s hair is so _cool_.”

“I’ll exile your family, Syoma, I can still do that.”

“Go ahead. Who would come with you to your husband’s real estate impulse purchase parties? _Brooks_?”

Sasha pulled into the driveway where Greenie was standing, doing a little dance with all 180lbs of Nicky on his back. Once Sasha climbed out, Nicky slipped off his back and ran to Sasha, taking one of his hands in both of his.

“It’s not as tacky as you usually like, but it’s a good first house, right?” Nicky asked.

Sasha had known Nicky all his life—not just all of his own life, but all of _Nicky’s_ life, since their marriage treaty had been signed by their parents and governments before Nicky’s first birthday. He knew Nicky better than he knew himself, and he knew Nicky had an instinct for when things just weren’t right. That was why he had Sasha, who could see when Nicky became restless, agitated, bothered, and when his born-and-bred royal propriety forbid him from saying something that could get back to his family. 

Nicky had been in Washington before, and had played professional hockey before, and had lived with other people before, and Sasha knew he wouldn’t be happy in Washington, things wouldn’t be _right_ in Washington until they had their own space. They hadn’t moved a single fucking stitch of anything into the house, but that tightness around Nicky’s eyes was nearly all gone. 

Fuck, they’d have a lot of explaining to do to their parents, their palace ministers, their government ministers, the Capitals’ management, _George McPhee_ , but it was worth it. It was worth it for Nicky. Sasha looked at the house again, really seeing it for the first time, this place that they were probably going to buy together and live in together for a good long time. 

“It’s… Nicky, it’s so nice,” Sasha said. “But…”

“But what?” Nicky asked. He still had both his hands around Sasha’s left hand, his grip squeezing Sasha’s fingers and doing absolutely nothing to hide his excitement. 

“It’s blue,” Sasha said. “ _Boring_ blue. Shit, it’s Sweden’s flag blue.”

“And like the old jerseys!” Nicky paused for a beat. “We can’t paint the house red.”

“Well we can’t keep it _blue_ , no matter how patriotic you’re feeling.”

“It’s a nice blue!”

“Slate blue,” Mike chimed in.

“It needs to be darker,” Sasha said. “Come on, show me around.” He turned around and pointed at Syoma and Mike. “Not you two. Just Prince Homebuyer.”

“You bring me all the way out here, back to where I live, and I can’t even see your new house!” Syoma yelled at them. 

“Let me see my new house first, and then you can come in and curse it all you want!” Sasha yelled back. 

Nicky had found them a modern house, maybe the newest place either of them had ever lived in—everything looked new, from the shining floors to the exposed brick in the living room that probably didn’t serve any purpose except to be exposed and brick. Everything was modern and ridiculous and Sasha, who had grown up in the drafty rooms of ancient palaces in Moscow, and spent summers in the poorly ventilated rooms of Gävle’s summer palace, noted that they probably wouldn’t have to pay their whole fucking salaries to heating and cooling costs. 

Sasha wanted to be as romantic as Nicky looked while he was talking about the house, and knowing they would be warm in winter helped him get there. 

“It has five bedrooms and five bathrooms,” Nicky said as he led Sasha up the stairs to the second story. 

“Five bedrooms _and_ bathrooms? Is this a house or a dorm?” Sasha asked. 

“Your boarding school dorm didn’t have a bathroom like the one in the master suite.”

“I don’t think it had five bathrooms in the whole building, honestly.” 

It was good. It was a good first home for two young men with a lot of friends and teammates, who had enough money to properly heat the front rooms of the house and its very high ceilings.

It was 2007 and Sasha would turn 22 next week. He was a prince and a professional hockey player, standing with his future husband in the master bedroom of their new house. He already envisioned the measurements of the bed they could fit into the room and where it should go to make the most of the light; he could already see Nicky waking up for the first time in their new house, in their new country, and the little smile that would spread across his face before he hid away again in the sheets because he wasn’t a morning person. He could see what a pain in the ass it would be to bring hot cups of coffee up the steps from the kitchen, and how many mornings they would wake up before their alarms and put off getting out of bed just because coffee was so far away. They would each have bedside tables and Nicky would collect hair elastics of all sizes and thickness and never use them, because he would rather push his hair over his ears every 30 seconds than be an asshole with a ponytail, even in the privacy of their own bedroom. 

It wasn’t perfect and neither were they, so they were perfect for each other.

“I love it,” Sasha said. “Love it a lot, Nicky.”

Nicky grinned with surprise. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sasha said. “Our first five dogs are gonna love having their own rooms and bathrooms. Maybe we could get a contractor to connect the other rooms with the master suite, so when the dogs learn to open doors they can come in and sleep with us during the night.”

“Okay, never mind, I’m canceling the house and you can go back to that basement.”

Sasha pulled Nicky in by the waist and kissed him. Nicky laughed and tried to whine about what their hypothetical dogs would do to his allergies, but Sasha wasn’t having it, not in their house.

 

**NICKY**

Growing up, Sasha’s family sent holiday presents, not Christmas presents. Eventually Nicky learned that they arrived early in December, but his parents would hide them until New Year’s Eve, when he and Kris were allowed to open the presents from Sasha’s family.

“Why does Kris get presents from Sasha?” Nicky asked as he saw the large wrapped box addressed to Kris from Seryozha and Misha, Sasha’s older brothers. “ _He’s_ not the one marrying Sasha one day.”

“Come now, Nicklas, we’re all to be family one day,” his father said gently. “Of course Sasha and his brothers want to be nice to Kristoffer, just like you and Kris choose presents for Sasha’s brothers and for Sasha.”

Nicky had turned seven a month earlier, so he was old enough to know that his parents’ excuses were stupid because Kris deserved nothing. Kris didn’t hate Sasha, but he was two years older than Nicky and eight months older than Sasha, and Kris seemed to think that the eight months’ difference between his and Sasha’s birthdays meant he could baby them both when they were all at the palace outside Gävle for the summer. Next summer would be different; Nicky would be seven and a half and Sasha would be almost ten, and that was old enough to avoid Kris completely for an entire summer. 

Sometimes Nicky imagined that, since he and Sasha had to stay in Gävle every summer as part of the treaty’s conditions, maybe Kris could be sent to American summer camp like in the movies, and get a firecracker stuffed up his nose or go swimming in a lake filled with piranhas. 

“What did Seryozha and Misha send you?” Nicky asked Kris. He hadn’t opened his own presents from Sasha and his brothers yet, choosing instead to hoard one large shiny box on either side of him where he could keep a careful eye on them before Kris tried to steal one. 

“Two signed jerseys, Bure and Fedorov,” Kris said. 

Nicky rolled his eyes and their mother caught him, of course, but Kris sounded _bored_ by these presents that, anyway, he didn’t even deserve. “And you don’t like them,” Nicky said.

“They rubbed it in my face over the summer that Vancouver won the cup and Pittsburgh didn’t make it to the finals, like Pittsburgh and Lemieux didn’t have a very good reason,” Kris replied. “It’s a joke, I guess.”

“Then give them to me,” Nicky said.

“No, I like them,” Kris said. “I’ll keep them. They’re _my_ gifts.”

“Gifts you don’t like.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like them,” Kris scoffed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Shut up,” Nicky said.

“Nicklas,” his mother said. “Be good and open your gifts, or we’ll send them right back to Sasha and tell him you couldn’t even open a present without arguing.”

“Sasha would laugh and send them back to me,” Nicky muttered, but he opened the present from Sasha’s brothers first.

“What did you get?” Kris asked suspiciously. “If it was a bad present, you’d be complaining already.”

“We don’t _complain_ about presents,” their mother said. “You should be grateful to get anything from anyone, especially this year when you are both behaving like _children_.”

“We _are_ children,” Kris said as he began the slow creep towards Nicky’s stash of gifts. “Mama, this isn’t fair! They gave _him_ a Discman and all these CDs!”

“I knew Seryozha liked me better than you,” Nicky said. Nicky pushed the open box with the CDs close behind him, where Kris couldn’t dive for them. “Now what did Sasha give me?”

“Oh, _now_ Nicklas is happy, because he’s so selfish,” Kris said.

It was absolutely true—Nicky was _incredibly_ happy because his presents from his future brothers were _so_ much better than the ones they gave Kris, because they liked Nicky _so_ much more than they liked Kris, who was a loser and deserved nothing, ever. 

“Video games!” Nicky shouted when he opened the box from Sasha. “Sasha said they got the newest video games in Russia before they got them here, and he sent me so many!” Nicky clutched the box to his chest and looked at his parents. “Can I call Sasha now? And say thank you? He’s only two hours ahead of us, it’s not too late!”

“It can wait until tomorrow. You know Sasha’s family has a New Year’s Eve party,” Nicky’s mother said.

“So what?” Nicky asked. “Tell them it’s a royal emergency. Tell them I was so happy I fell off a balcony and my dying wish is to talk to Sasha.”

“I think that’s enough excitement for tonight,” his father announced. He took both boxes away from Nicky, roughly prying the video game box from Sasha out of Nicky’s hands, and left the room with them. Nicky’s protests fell on deaf ears. 

“You will write them all thank you notes,” his mother said. “And Nicklas, you won’t be touching either of those presents for one week. You’ve behaved horribly tonight.”

“What? That’s not fair!”

“Both of you get changed into your outfits for tonight,” his mother continued. “Our first guests will arrive soon, and you two are still in pajamas.” 

Kris and Nicky obeyed and took the stairs to their rooms, but Kris waited until they were out of earshot of their mother before he elbowed Nicky into a wall. Nicky shoved him back, knocking him into the bannister so he slipped down two steps. Nicky raced up the rest of the stairs and ran not into his bedroom, but down another corridor to one of the guest rooms where he locked himself inside. 

The guest rooms all had their own phones connected directly to operators for all their very important guests who had never dialed a phone number before in their lives, so Nicky had only a moment to clear his throat and try to sound just a bit older than seven for the operator.

“Hello, I would like a direct connection to the Moscow palace,” Nicky said. “I’m trying to reach Prince Alexander, thank you.” 

“Is this Prince Nicklas?” asked the operator. “This sounds like Prince Nicklas.”

Nicky panicked for a moment, but then sat up a little straighter and committed. “Yes, it is,” Nicky said. “I’m trying to reach Prince Alexander to thank him for his holiday gift.”

“Well, isn’t that polite of you, Your Highness. Please hold just a moment and I’ll connect you.”

“Thank you, and may you have a happy new year,” Nicky said.

The operator sounded surprised. “Thank you, Your Highness. You as well.”

Nicky picked up the phone and sat on the floor, proud to be proving his mother so completely wrong about how _horrible_ he was. Look at how mature he was, calling Moscow by himself and being very polite to a stranger. He was like Kevin from _Home Alone_ , but so much more mature. If his entire family disappeared and there were intruders in the palace, he could certainly handle them, too.

“Prince Nicklas?” asked the operator again. “I’ve reached someone at the palace and they’re looking for Prince Alexander now. Thank you for your patience.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” Nicky said, the way he had heard his mother say a hundred times before.

“Nicky,” called a voice through the keyhole of the guest room. Kris, of course. “Nicky, Mama says you have five minutes to finish being a baby before she comes in there.”

Nicky covered the receiver. “Fine, Kris! Leave me alone!”

There were sounds on the other end of the line and Nicky held it up to his ear again. “Hello?”

“Hello? Nicky?”

“Sasha,” Nicky sighed. “Thank you for the video games.”

“Nicky! You got them! Good! You have to tell me how long it takes you to beat the ice levels in _Donkey Kong Country_ before I tell you how long it took me. I beat the game already, so if you need help just call me again, okay?” Sasha paused for a moment. “Or… for the first time. Have you called me before, Nicky?”

“I don’t think so,” Nicky said. He cradled the phone close, pressing it hard against his ear and his shoulder. “But, I don’t know, I wanted to call you now. I wanted to say thank you, and—and happy new year.”

“Happy new year,” Sasha repeated. “Do you like new year’s? It’s my favorite holiday.”

“Not really,” Nicky said. “We have a party with too many people, too many people pinching my cheeks and telling me how big I’ve gotten. Like Christmas, but everyone drinks more and all the rooms are too hot. Why do you like it so much?”

“I don’t know,” Sasha admitted. “Papa spends the first little bit of our party making sure I say hello to people, you know, in the receiving line, but then I spend the whole party sneaking around. Last year I was in the gardens with a whole plate of snacks the kitchen gave me, until Seryozha found me for the fireworks. I don’t know what I’ll do this year.”

“I wish I was there,” Nicky said. “I’d have more fun with you than with anyone here.”

“Maybe one year you can spend the holidays here with my family,” Sasha said. “Your family never lets you come to Moscow. I bet if you and Kris wanted—”

“No, Kris can’t come,” Nicky said. “Just me.”

“Okay, just you,” Sasha laughed. “Just us. I’ll think of you at our party tonight. Happy new year, Nicky. I’ll write to you from school.”

“Me too,” Nicky said. “I’ll write to you. Happy new year, Sasha. I miss you.” 

“You do?” Sasha asked. “I miss you, too.”

There was a key turning in the lock of the guest bedroom. That was Nicky’s cue.

“Yes, I have to go, bye.” Nicky slammed the phone down and held it in his lap as his mother opened the door.

“What were you doing? Who were you talking to?” 

“No one,” Nicky said.

“You were talking to someone.”

“So what?”

“Nicklas, who did you call?”

Nicky shrugged. “I called Sasha to say happy new year.”

Nicky’s mother rolled her eyes. Nicky would have laughed because she had just yelled at him not to do that, it wasn’t proper for a prince, but he was too surprised at the gesture. He rolled his eyes when he was sick and tired of people; why would his mother roll her eyes at calling Sasha?

“What?” Nicky asked. “Why can’t I call Sasha? He’s my friend, and he answered the phone.”

“He’s not Sasha, he’s Prince Alexander.” Nicky’s mother crouched down and took the phone away from Nicky, placing it back on the desk where he had found it. “You may be friends, but he’s still _Prince Alexander_. Our family has a treaty with his family, and it’s very nice if you’re friends during the summer, but you are not to contact him like that, understood?”

“What?” Nicky asked. “Why not? He’s my friend. He’s _Sasha_.”

She sighed again, still annoyed with him like he was stupid. “It’s a political relationship, Nicklas,” she said. “You see him for the summer and one day you’ll live with him in Moscow, but it’s always going to be _political_ between you. Do you understand me?”

“No,” Nicky said. “No I don’t. He’s—he’s my friend. You said I was supposed to marry him one day. He was—we’re going to be like you and Papa. We’re going to live in Russia with—with a family.” He couldn’t say why, exactly, this hurt. Nicky was too old to cry in front of his mother, and too old to cry without a very good reason, and yet there he was, seven years old on the last day of 1994, crying for reasons he didn’t understand. Everyone had told him, every summer he could remember, that Sasha was his and he was Sasha’s; what did the rest of this mean?

“We were going to live in the Moscow palace like the kid in _Home Alone_ ,” Nicky said. “It was going to be us and a bunch of our kids and pizza, and we—we’d have the little cars everywhere, to play jokes on people—”

“You’re talking nonsense, Nicklas,” his mother said. “You and Sasha will be married one day, when you’re much, _much_ older, but we will always come first. Kris and Papa and I, and Sweden, even if you live in Russia. Sasha is—it’s just a treaty, Nicklas, an arrangement. Do you understand what that word means?”

Nicky cried harder and threw his head back against the hard wooden drawer of the desk, and cried harder at the pain. His mother dragged him up, then called for his father because he was too heavy for her to scoop up like a baby. 

“I don’t know why he’s throwing this fit,” his mother said to his father. “Just put him in his room. I’ll check on him before the party, but—”

“It’s all right, take care of the party, I’ll keep an eye on him tonight,” his father said. “You’re too old to be this difficult, Nicklas.”

Nicky let his father carry him to his room. He was too big to be carried like this, his long legs dangling at his father’s side, but he ended up back in his room, the door closed behind his father. Nicky turned off all the lights except his bedside lamp and crawled back into bed. Everything hurt, even while he slept. 


	2. Chapter 2

**SASHA**

The summer before Sasha turned fifteen, he had an idea for what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, but he needed to check with Nicky. 

He didn’t need to check with Nicky for _permission_ or anything, but because Nicky was—he was Nicky. Nicky was twelve and in the past few summers, he seemed quieter and calmer, but that was only around his family and people who weren’t Sasha. Nicky didn’t snap at his parents anymore, but he didn’t seem to like them, either. It didn’t help that his parents now made jokes about how Nicky was becoming an angry teenager and how hilarious that was, but Sasha had hated when they made those jokes about him, too. 

It didn’t matter; around Sasha, he was still Nicky, who bubbled over with talking and jokes and sarcasm and laughter, and he was the person Sasha could talk to about his future.

It was Nicky’s future, too.

Every summer, Sasha’s whole family arrived in Gävle for a day or two of press and special events with Nicky’s family, annual celebrations for the treaty that had brought Sweden and Russia together and would one day culminate in Nicky and Sasha’s wedding and lifelong partnership or whatever. Sasha’s family usually stayed three days before they flew back to Moscow and left Sasha at the summer palace with Nicky and Nicky’s family.

He and Nicky were very much on their own for most of the summer. The older Sasha and Kris got, the better they understood each other: Sasha could spend every day and night with Nicky, and Kris didn’t have to put up the pretense that he was babysitting them or, worse, _friendly_ with his younger brother and the Russian weirdo legally obligated to spend the summer with them every year. 

Once the car left the Gävle palace to take Sasha’s family back to the airport, Sasha turned to Nicky. “Do you want to watch a movie before dinner?”

“You’ll both rot your stupid brains out if you watch _Dumb and Dumber_ again,” Kris said. “I don’t know how you’re not sick of those morons yet.”

“Sasha, let’s go watch _Dumb and Dumber_ in my room,” Nicky said as he took Sasha’s hand and led him back through the palace. Kris called out after them, something like _Jim Carrey isn’t that funny_ , which only made Nicky stalk through the palace faster and grip Sasha’s hand tighter. 

Nicky’s room in the summer palace was larger than Sasha’s room in Moscow or at boarding school (obviously). It had tall beautiful windows and a set of French doors that opened to a balcony where they sometimes sat and dozed all night in sleeping bags when Nicky’s room was too warm. Nicky shut the door behind them and turned his tv/vcr on, where _Dumb and Dumber_ picked up from where they last left it. They didn’t sit to watch; Nicky pulled open the doors of the balcony and sat down with his thin shoulders into the corner formed by the metal bars. Sasha knew it was his preferred spot—from there, he could see Sasha, the grounds of the palace, and into his bedroom in case someone let themselves in to interrupt them or spy on them. 

Sasha sat on the balcony, technically on the hardwood floor of Nicky’s bedroom with his feet on the balcony, but then he changed his mind. He scooted over to Nicky’s corner of the balcony and tried his best to sit side-by-side with him. Sasha stretched out his legs against Nicky’s, arranging them so Nicky’s shins were draped across Sasha’s lap. They were both pale as anything, especially Nicky and the blond hair that was barely visible along his shins unless Sasha jostled his legs and they caught a glint of sunlight. 

“I know I have legs like a girl, Kris already told me,” Nicky sighed. “Like he’s not as blond as me, that asshole.” 

“Girls would be jealous if they saw your legs,” Sasha said. “In my year, they like to show off and complain about how often they shave.”

“Do they—” Sasha watched Nicky carefully open his eyes, then shut them again when he saw Sasha was looking. “Do they talk to you about it?”

“Are you asking me if I have a girlfriend?”

“No,” Nicky scoffed. “I don’t care.” 

Sasha nudged Nicky’s legs until Nicky opened his eyes again.

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend,” Sasha said. “Do you? Have you had a girlfriend? Is that why you’re too cool to fight with Kris anymore?”

“I stopped fighting with Kris because he’s boring and not worth it,” Nicky said. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend.” 

“Well, good,” Sasha said. “I’d have to go to the United Nations and file sanctions against Sweden because my future husband cheated on me.”

Nicky grinned at Sasha. “Yeah? Then what?”

Ssaha laughed and leaned up so he could flick the side of Nicky’s legs, hard enough to make him flinch and try to elbow Sasha right back. Sasha grabbed Nicky’s hands and loosely held onto him, to his left hand and Nicky’s lithe fingers smooth and cool against his palm. 

“Listen,” Sasha began. His throat was dry, suddenly, as the pads of his fingers ran over Nicky’s skin, distracting him from what he was going to talk to Nicky about, that really important thing that mattered very much when they sat down on the balcony outside. He had to let go of Nicky’s hand and maybe get some semblance of his brain back in his head, but it—his hands were so smooth, even the hockey calluses little more than bumps that Sasha could touch. Sasha swallowed whatever was in his throat. “Nicky, can I tell you something and you’ll promise to tell me what you really think?”

“If it’s about a girl, you should dump her,” Nicky said immediately. “All of them. Every single one. I get very jealous. You can’t back out of marrying me now. I’m twelve, Sasha. How am I ever going to meet another husband at my age?”

Sasha smiled to himself before he remembered to answer. “Shut up, Nicky.” 

He was so, so fond of Nicky, a warm feeling coming over him every year when they were settled in the palace for the summer again. He rarely felt like that at school or at home, except when he was holed up in his bed reading one of Nicky’s letters or writing one back to him. It was a feeling Sasha thought he felt all the time when he was younger and Seryozha was still alive. 

The summer after the accident, when he and his family arrived at the Gävle palace, Sasha dreaded the three months he would have to spend being cheerful around Nicky when he had spent months crying whenever he saw anything of Seryozha’s, or remembered any little thing about him. When they arrived at the palace, Sasha remembered climbing out of the car and the first thing he saw was a blur of yellow-gold flying towards him. 

It was Nicky, who threw himself into Sasha’s arms and held him so tight Sasha thought his ribs would break with how much Nicky loved him. He thought his heart would burst and die as he felt Nicky whispering against his neck, _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I wish I had been there with you, I missed you so much_. 

It didn’t happen right away but somehow, that summer, Sasha felt fond again. Sometimes he felt happy. Wherever he was, Seryozha saw he was happy and he did Sasha a favor—he made a little room for Nicky inside Sasha’s heart, and that was all Sasha needed. 

Sasha could finally piece together what he wanted to talk to Nicky about, now when he wanted to talk about their future. “I can leave school after next year, when I’m sixteen,” Sasha said. “And same as with you and with anyone in a royal family: either we go to university or we go into the army. But I was thinking—tell me if this—if it won’t work.”

“Do you want to become an astronaut, like when we were little?” Nicky asked. “Because all the Russian astronauts get to keep the dogs they take with them into space?”

“Okay, look, I was very young and we studied all the space flights in the same week at school,” Sasha said defensively. “I was bound to get a few of them mixed up.”

“You promised me a dog when we live in Moscow.”

“I’ll get you a dog, I promise,” Sasha said. “A little dog for you, a big one for me. Then a medium-sized one for you, until we work you up to big, big dogs.”

Nicky laughed and nudged Sasha back. “What were you talking about?”

Sasha nodded. “Right. University or army, but. Okay. My hockey coach at school talked to me and he thinks—look, the Russian hockey federation scouts our games every season, and—and lots of royals play sports, but I’m _good_ , Nicky. He thinks I’m good enough that I can play at World Juniors, not this year but next year when I’m sixteen. And if I’m good enough for World Juniors…” Sasha pointedly didn’t look at Nicky for a moment; this was the part that might kill his parents, but Nicky should be all right. “If I make the World Juniors team, I’ll be good enough to join a professional club. A hockey club. Instead of the army or university.” Sasha finally allowed himself to glance at Nicky. “So?”

“...Yes?”

“Is it completely crazy?”

“Is what?”

“Nicky! Is it crazy if I—if I _have a job_. If I _play hockey_.” 

He stared at Sasha for the longest moment in either of their lives and just when Sasha was about to dissolve into a pile of ashes, Nicky beamed at him like the sun. 

“Sasha, it would be _amazing_. Really. It would be _amazing_ if you played hockey.”

“Really? You really think so?”

“You’ve shattered the glass in our shitty rink here more than once. You would _destroy_ everyone at World Juniors with your shot.” Nicky gave a little shrug. “Not that I’ve seen you play for your school, or more than our practices here, but that’s a _big deal_ , that the national team wants you. Sasha, that’s _so good_.” 

The horrible unrest in Sasha’s gut seemed to settle as Nicky smiled at him. He took Nicky’s hand again and held it firmly. “Good.” Sasha tipped his head back against the bars of the balcony and smiled. “Good. I’m so happy, Nicky.” 

Nicky didn’t answer, so Sasha took some comfort in their silence and the sunshine over their heads. 

*

Sasha’s usual bedroom in the summer palace was next to Nicky’s, but not adjacent; there was no secret passage between them, no matter how many days they spent as children knocking on the walls looking for hollow spots and secret doors like in the movies. They would stay up late almost every night and most nights, Nicky would tug at the hem of Sasha’s shirt and drag him into his princely oversized bed, because what was the point of their summer sleepovers if Sasha didn’t actually sleep over in his room?

Nicky let Sasha go back to his room for a few nights, but one night when Sasha yawned, Nicky tugged at the hem of his t-shirt again and nodded at his bed on the other side of the room. Sasha nodded back, stripped off his shirt, and climbed into bed. He sat there for a moment, waiting for Nicky and watching him before he realized he looked strange and awkward. He quickly lay down and pulled the sheets around himself. 

It was fine, Sasha thought, lying shirtless next to Nicky, when Nicky had finally climbed into bed, too. This was how he slept at school the rest of the year, and he and Nicky were already talking about their future, what they would do when school and their parents’ decisions didn’t hang over their heads as much as they did now. Where to sleep, how to sleep, that was all part of it. One day they would finalize the treaty and be married and live together, and this was how it would be. They would be grown men and they would sleep like this every night. 

“Nicky,” Sasha whispered. The room was huge and they were alone; he didn’t need to whisper, but he did anyway. “Nicky, what about you?”

“Hmm? What?”

“Your—when you’re done with school. What are you going to do?”

“Oh. I don’t know, Sasha.” 

“Not even a little bit?”

“Not really,” Nicky said. “I suppose I’ll go to university and study until… I don’t know. Until we get married and… and we travel. See people, do charity events, all the stupid things our parents do with their lives.” 

“Does it have to be stupid? It’s your life, Nicky.” Sasha finally glanced over to see Nicky, shirtless with an arm on top of the covers, his thin chest moving strangely, like he was forcing every breath out. Sasha reached over and put a hand on his chest. He sat up, his hand still on Nicky’s chest, leaning down so he could look into Nicky’s face, except Nicky wouldn’t look at him. “I’m sorry I asked, I—it’s just that I’m older and people are always asking—”

“No, Sasha, I haven’t thought about it.” Nicky looked at Sasha, his eyes suddenly full of tears. “I haven’t had to, because your family has let you do what you want and think how you want, and mine has only told me that my plans don’t matter, because one day I’ll be in Russia and that’s it, that’s it for my whole entire life, that’s the end of anything I want.”

It was hot in Nicky’s room; they always slept with the windows and doors open to the breezes and trees that surrounded the palace, but it was still so much more humid and hot than Moscow’s worst days. Still, when Nicky said that, Sasha felt a chill on his shoulders, a splash of cold that Nicky could think of him like this, that he had stolen Nicky’s future, somehow. What future did he have that wasn’t theirs, always _theirs_ , his and Nicky’s, together?

“It’s not,” Sasha pleaded. He clutched Nicky’s shoulders, then realized he was holding Nicky too hard and that—that wasn’t right, he had to let Nicky go, he had to stop holding him like this. “I’ve never said that. It’s always been you and me. It’s always going to be us and what we want.” 

Nicky barely seemed to notice, his eyes fixed hard on Sasha’s. “You say that, but you’ll be playing hockey and I’ll be wearing suits and clapping from the box, waving at you on the ice.”

“So play hockey,” Sasha said. “You play for your school, too, with boys they’re already talking about like they talk about me. Remember when you told me they wanted to make you a captain last year? That’s _good_ , Nicky. We’ll both play hockey. We’ll do what we want. We’re both spares to the throne, so let’s do what we like.” 

Nicky shook his head and looked away. “Everything’s so easy for you.”

Sasha took a sharp breath and reached for Nicky’s chin so he could make Nicky look at him again. “Yeah, it’s easy for me,” Sasha said. “We have to do what we want because we’re going to die one day. I don’t want to wear a black suit to your funeral and tell your parents, _He was my best friend and he wasted his whole entire life worrying about what you thought. Have a good day and remember, your son is dead and you never let him be happy_.” Sasha thought about it and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing to tell them anyway.”

Nicky’s face crumpled into something worse right in front of Sasha’s eyes. Whatever was left of Sasha’s heart felt like it was dying, like he could feel it crumbling inside of him. 

“Leave me alone,” Nicky said. “Leave me alone, Sasha.”

Sasha froze. “You want me to go?”

Nicky nodded and turned away from him. Sasha kneeled next to him for another moment, then left Nicky’s room for his own. 

*

Breakfast was quiet enough the next morning that Kris looked between them and threw a slice of banana at Nicky’s face. “Hey. What happened to you?”

“Nothing, I slept bad,” Nicky replied. “It’s too hot in this house.” Nicky noticed the banana that had landed next to his bowl and Sasha could see the moment Nicky considered throwing his whole fruit bowl at Kris, bowl and fork included. 

Kris watched Nicky for a second, then glared at Sasha like he knew it was his fault.

“What?” Sasha asked. “It’s hot out.”

“It’s only June. You know it gets worse,” Kris said. “Nicklas, you better start sleeping at the rink if your room’s going to make you look too tired for your glamorous summer photo shoots.” 

“Fuck the photos.”

“Whatever helps you sleep, Nicklas. Speaking of the rink, I have some friends coming down for the weekend, if you two want to make it three-on-three while they’re here. You can’t play on the same team, though. It’s not fair to the rest of us who have lives besides hockey and just want to have fun.”

“Maybe we won’t join you, if your fifteen-year-old friends can’t handle themselves against a twelve-year-old,” Nicky said. 

“It’s not you I’m worried about, you baby. Sasha has a shot that could send you to the moon if he ever felt like doing all of Sweden a favor.”

Sasha picked up two halves of a sandwich roll from one of the breakfast platters and shoved the rest of his breakfast into it, hard-boiled eggs and sausage and cream cheese and jam and an unreasonable amount of caviar spread over the top. “I forgot I have to call my family before they go out for the day,” Sasha said as he took his sandwich and left the Backstroms to their breakfast. 

*

Nicky decided to avoid him at the ice rink, which was inconvenient when Sasha was already there, slowly skating off his breakfast and warming up. 

Nicky sat down at the bench to lace up his skates. He called out to Sasha, “You won’t get good enough for the Superleague just playing with yourself out here.”

Sasha smiled and continued to skate his slow laps until Nicky came on the ice and caught up with him. 

“Did you tell Kris why you were angry at me?” Sasha asked.

“No,” Nicky said. “Kris and I are always like that, he probably didn’t notice.”

“He noticed,” Sasha said. 

“Whatever.” 

As they skated, Sasha took Nicky’s hand and linked their fingers together.

“Maybe I’ll drag you into the Superleague, too,” Sasha said. “Or maybe you’ll go to university and play for the national team here while you find what you want to do. But I’m older than you and I know I want to play hockey, and I’m going to argue with my family and my government until they let me play hockey. That’s what I’m doing. When you know what you’re doing, I know you’ll tell me and we’ll figure out how to do it together, even if I have to drag you into the Superleague myself. Even if I have to drag you to whoever runs your stupid national team and tell them how good you are. Even if _I_ have to join your godawful Elitserien—” 

“Russia didn’t even make it to the finals this year.”

“Sweden’s only won gold seven times, ever. When we lose, we lose like _champions_.”

Nicky smiled at the joke, but he was quiet and that was rarely, if ever, good. 

“The Superleague for now,” Nicky said. “But what about the NHL?”

“...what?”

“Let’s try for one,” Nicky said, “And aim for the other.” Nicky squeezed Sasha’s hand as they continued to skate laps. “Russia isn’t far enough, and if we’re going to kill our parents and governments anyway, we might as well make it worth their while.”

Sasha had never thought of it like that, but it made a lot of sense. Nicky always made a lot of sense.

*

At the end of August, Nicky and Kris came to the private airport outside Gävle to send Sasha off for the year. Kris put on his sunglasses like he was cool and stood by the car while Nicky held onto Sasha for as long as they dared. 

“Write to me at school,” Nicky whispered. “When you tell your parents about hockey. No, not just that. Just write to me, please.”

“I will, and you’ll write to me. Don’t listen to your parents. If they try to make you one of the captains on your team this year, just take it and play as much as you want.”

“Next summer,” Nicky promised. “Next summer, we’ll tell them all what we want to do, and then—”

“I’m sorry this is taking so long, Sasha!” Kris called out from the car. “My brother needs more fucking friends in his life!”

“I’m sorry, but your brother’s a jerk,” Sasha whispered. 

“I noticed,” Nicky said. “Have a good year, Sasha.”

“Have a good year, Nicky.” 

Sasha pulled away so he could kiss Nicky’s cheeks—the polite thing to do when leaving a friend for a long time, but he knew he was pushing just a little too close to Nicky’s lips as he kissed his cheek. Nicky turned his head slightly on the second kiss and caught the corner of Sasha’s mouth. They lingered too long for it to be an accident; when Sasha pulled away, he saw Nicky had his eyes closed, like he was scared of what would happen. 

“Have a good year,” Sasha repeated. 

Nicky opened his eyes again. He looked so, so hopeful. Sasha wondered if he did, too. 

“I will. You, too.” Nicky stepped back and Sasha smiled at him before he turned and walked towards the waiting plane.

When Sasha was inside the plane, sitting in a window seat on the same side as Nicky’s car on the airfield, he waved to Nicky and got a wave back. Nicky nodded and walked back to Kris and the waiting car. Sasha watched the car leave, then sat back as his plane took off.

*

In Moscow, his parents had two drivers, Petya and Vitya. Petya was his mother’s preferred driver and Petya accompanied his parents on all their trips because they trusted no one else to navigate them through the city. Vitya covered everyone else in the royal household, including everyone at the palace when Sasha’s parents were away.

Vitya was the one who picked up Sasha from the airport, so that meant Petya was with his parents and his parents were not in the city, possibly not even the country.

“Where have they gone?” Sasha asked, because he was the youngest son and he had been away all summer, and no one thought to tell him anything, not even Misha who he had spoken to two nights ago when checking in before his flight. 

“Your parents have been in Australia for ten days, Your Highness,” Vitya said. “I believe they’re due to return before you leave for school next week. They do want to see you before you return to school.”

“Okay, thank you.”

They were back at the palace quickly enough. Vitya, much more formal with the family than Petya, opened the door for Sasha at the front of the palace before taking the car and his bags away to be brought to his rooms. Sasha looked up at the stairs of the palace and the open door waiting for him at the top. He nodded to himself and let himself inside past Marina, the housekeeper holding the door open for him. The palace ran on minimal staff over the summer; Sasha was always away at Gävle, his parents traveled constantly, and Misha stayed with his security detail for days at a time at his friends’ summer estates. 

“When do you plan on taking supper?” Marina asked. “Are you hungry now?”

“Can I just… go to the kitchen when I want to eat and make something myself?” Sasha asked. Moscow was only two hours ahead of Gävle, but with his mostly unstructured summer schedule, he had no idea what meal he was supposed to be having around now. 

“Of course, Your Highness. We’ll stay out of your way.”

“No, no—I don’t mean like that, I mean—”

“Really, it’s all right. We know the Gävle palace and your school both allow you to be very independent, so it’s always strange coming back here with a staff. You know where to find us if you need anything. Your room on the second floor is ready for you. Don’t hesitate to ring for anything at all.” 

Marina curtsied or something at him and just as she made to disappear down another corridor, Sasha said, “Wait! Is my brother home? Is he in the city or—I haven’t spoken to him in two days, I didn’t know if his plans had changed.”

“Oh,” Marina said. “No. No, he’s not in the city. I believe he’s gone to Sochi for a few days with friends. If that’s all?”

Sasha nodded and Marina left him alone. Sasha looked around at the palace where he had grown up—the endlessly long corridors, the high ceilings, the tall windows that let in less light every year as the city grew taller around the palace. He walked to his room and immediately, _immediately_ hated how the empty palace pressed against him, daring him to take up space and knowing he absolutely couldn’t, he couldn’t fill this whole place by himself. 

He shut himself in his bedroom and turned on the tv, turning the volume up enough to irritate his ears. He had a phone in his room, and a computer but no internet. The landline and his mobile in his pocket taunted him, daring him to call Nicky. Just a casual little call to the palace to let him know he had arrived in Moscow and to wish him a good year again, that was all. 

Then he would hang up with Nicky and he would still be in this room, in this palace, in this city, alone. 

Sasha sat on his bed and looked at his watch. He would take five minutes to feel very sorry for himself—for being wealthy and alone, and well-fed and alone, and spoiled and alone—and then he would find something to watch on tv and pack his things for school. He would eat something and go to bed at a reasonable hour. He wouldn’t call Nicky because if he ever knew about this, how could Nicky ever want him? 

 

**NICKY**

Sasha waited until he returned to Moscow to tell his parents and his brother that he was going to sign with a club after he turned sixteen the following season. Nicky only heard about the incident through one ten-page dissertation of a letter that arrived at his boarding school in early October, the discussion between Sasha and his family already weeks in the past. 

_I did to them what I did to you, and I won’t say sorry for that_ , Sasha wrote. _I told them to think what Seryozha would say if he was there. Misha almost killed me, he was so angry, but it’s true. If he were alive, he would be on my side, it wouldn’t be a question. It isn’t just hockey. Anything I needed, anything I wanted, anything I felt, he was always there. He would have done this for me, so I have to do it for myself._

The following summer started as usual: Sasha arrived in Gävle with his family in the middle of June to drop off Sasha and to stay for a few days of pleasant media events showing off the strong bond between the princes who would cement their nations’ political union for at least two generations. After a day of rest and organized family activities to entertain Sasha’s family and enough meals to keep them all happy and relaxed, the two families retired to a sitting room and Nicky and Sasha made their move. 

The two of them stood up from the loveseat they had claimed, walked to the mantle at the front of the room, and Nicky announced the tentative sketch of the plan for their future. He took Sasha’s hand tightly in his own and spoke very slowly and very clearly to his parents, Sasha’s parents, and Kris and Misha.

After that, it didn’t go very well. 

“Whose idea was this NHL nonsense?” Nicky’s mother asked this, then sighed immediately. “Why do I ask when I know it was Nicklas?”

“It isn’t a bad idea,” Nicky protested. “It isn’t nonsense.”

“You’re a prince of Sweden who has _no intention_ of living in Sweden,” Nicky’s mother said. “What are we supposed to do with that, Nicklas?”

“Stop calling me that, it sounds so condescending,” Nicky said.

“Good! It’s _meant_ to be condescending! You’re not even fourteen and you seem to be under the impression that you are not third in line for the throne of your country!”

“I’m _third_ in line, that doesn’t—”

“Oh? It doesn’t mean anything? Your grandmother plans to abdicate in the next few years, Nicklas. We are in a period of transition as I prepare to ascend and Kristoffer becomes the crown prince. Where will you be if something happens to me and to Kris?”

Nicky sighed, too close to his mother’s exasperation to be mocking her. “I’m not so stupid, I wouldn’t abandon the crown if it came to me, but—”

“You want to abandon it now!”

“I want to make something of myself. I want to do something that _I_ actually want to do!” 

Nicky’s mother paced the room. Nicky tightened his grip on Sasha’s hand, but he couldn’t look over at Sasha, knowing how badly this was going. 

“Wasn’t I going to live in Russia anyway?” Nicky asked. “Wasn’t part of this whole deal that I eventually marry Sasha and live in Russia? So what’s the difference between—”

“That’s you doing as you’re told, following our instructions and the letter of the treaty, where you are a prince of Sweden and you do your duty by representing Sweden as a good, respectful, _obedient_ husband in Russia,” Nicky’s mother said. 

“But we can’t do _exactly_ that in North America.” 

“North America has no use for us and therefore no use for you.” 

Nicky gripped Sasha’s hand again. “I’m standing here with Sasha! I want to go with him, no matter what, but now I have a plan for what I want to do.”

Nicky’s mother turned to Sasha’s parents. “You have no problem with Sasha leaving Russia? I’ve come to understand, perhaps, allowing him to play for a club before choosing a real occupation to complement his responsibilities, but you’ll allow him to go to _North America_?” 

Sasha’s parents looked at Nicky, then looked at their son. Sasha’s father was nearly impossible to read when he was in a room with Nicky’s parents, so it was Sasha’s mother who answered.

“Sasha has never tried to hide the fact that he’s a better diplomat with the stick and puck.” 

“He plays to strengths,” Sasha’s father added. 

Kris stood up, hands in the trouser pockets of his too-formal summer suit. 

“You’ll need an agent,” Kris said to Nicky. “Did you secretly sign with one yet, or should I help you find one?”

Nicky’s mother threw up her hands as she looked at Kris and then Nicky. “Am I the only one who remembers what we’re doing here? Why we’re even here, together, in this palace now? We have duties and responsibilities, and Nicklas will not walk away from them.”

“I never said I would walk away!” Nicky protested. 

“Mama, do you know Nicky?” Kris asked. “We come here every summer, and you and Auntie Tanya stand with him and Sasha in that library, taking photos and talking nonsense, and Nicky _hates_ it. He was a baby and he crawled away. Do you remember he was three or four and we were taking photos, and he tore off his clothes and ran? Today he—didn’t you see he was actually happy, because he had this in his back pocket?” 

“He’s not abdicating,” Sasha added. “Neither am I. We are… professional hockey ambassadors.”

Nicky looked at Sasha. “What the hell?” 

“You’re fluent in three languages, you should be better at this,” Sasha whispered. 

Nicky looked annoyed, but Sasha squeezed his hand and cracked a smile at him. 

“And you?” 

Nicky’s mother interrupted their moment, coming closer to the two of them, her eyes fixed on Sasha. “My son has thrown a wrench into not just our plans for him, but yours as well. I’ve known you since you were a child, Sasha, and you’ve never said a word about living away from Russia. Now you’re ready to leave your family and your country because my son thinks he’s made up his mind about what he wants?”

Sasha smiled at Nicky’s mother with his most princely expression; Nicky saw the expression with the kind eyes that would definitely be on money one day. 

“He can throw all the wrenches he wants,” Sasha said. “Russian machine never breaks.” 

*

The next year when Nicky turned fifteen, he signed with the junior team in Malmö and, prince or not, he didn’t play. He practiced with the team and he didn’t play. Nicky listened to his teammates complain about their billet families and their homework and their attempts at getting laid; he didn’t play outside of practice; and he began to realize that his life actually _was_ strange and he was never going to belong anywhere that wasn’t with Sasha. 

It was a feeling that made his heart sink, because there were nearly seven billion people on earth and nine million people in Sweden, but that didn’t mean he could really _get_ the other boys in the locker room when they complained about girls who wouldn’t suck their dicks. 

Nicky now lived in a house in Lund with Kris, both of them away from their parents while Kris attended the university in Lund and Nicky played hockey fifteen minutes away. Nicky had a new mobile and Moscow was only two hours ahead of them; Kris didn’t bother teasing Nicky about hiding in his room every other night to talk to Sasha.

(The house with Kris was an unofficial amendment to their treaty, something to placate their parents: Sasha and Nicky could play hockey in Moscow and Malmö, but they had to live with their permanently irritated older brothers, who had agreed to support their younger brothers in their hockey quest until (if) Nicky and Sasha left for the NHL. So far there were no casualties, but it was only Sasha’s second season and Nicky’s first.) 

“I think I hate my team,” Nicky told Sasha on the phone one night. “They don't seem to understand that… I actually want to play hockey? And that’s why I signed with a _hockey team_?”

“I would hate your team, too, if they put me on the bench so I could watch them lose games every night,” Sasha said. “You would love my team—they’re all horrible old men who complain about everything and I’m the only sunshine in their lives. You’d _love_ them. They’re just like you, but angrier. Are you coming to World Juniors?”

“They haven’t invited me to play,” Nicky said. “I’m not sixteen yet and I can’t exactly impress anyone with all the hockey I’m _not playing_ for Malmö.”

“That’s true,” Sasha considered. “Does that mean you’re going to miss my first time playing at World Juniors? You’re not going to steal Kris’s holiday break so he can escort you to Nova Scotia and make sure I don’t steal you? Well, if that’s how you want it.” 

“Shut up, of course I’m going.”

“Only because I sold it to you so well.”

“Shut _up_ , Sasha, my god.”

“Do you talk to your coaches like that? Maybe that’s why you still haven’t made it on the ice.”

“See if I don’t go to World Juniors just to skip all of Russia’s games,” Nicky said. “I’ll give bitchy interviews like, _yes I suppose if I have time I’ll go see Prince Alexander play, I think I’ve heard he’s not doing badly in Moscow. Is he still with… oh, I forget the name of his team._ ”

“You fucking liar, like you could forget me,” Sasha laughed. “See if you don’t dream tonight of jerking off while you bite down on my trading card. I know you have my trading card, Nicky.”

“You sent it to me! Also: _what_. Go back to that other thing.”

“I can send you more trading cards, if you’ve already, _somehow_ , ruined the one I sent you.”

“Why does a seventeen-year-old even have a trading card?” 

“I’ll autograph the next one and rub it on me so it smells like my cologne.”

“You wear too much of it anyway, so at least that’ll do you some good. Your team will thank me when they’re not laughing at you, rubbing your own trading cards all over yourself.” 

“Honestly, with the whole prince thing, they probably expected a lot worse from me. I need to live up to their expectations, their hopes and dreams.” Sasha sighed deeply in his ear and Nicky looked at his watch resting next to his pillow. “It’s late. Fuck your teammates. Not literally, but it’s just the junior league. You can move into the men’s league next season, can’t you?”

“The men’s season starts before I turn sixteen, so it’ll have to be the year after.”

“Okay, you know I politically respect your country very much according to the terms of the treaty and I am grateful that such a place gave me an asshole like you, but your country’s hockey system is complete fucking nonsense. Let me know when you have a schedule set for Halifax, all right?” 

“Sure, just insult my league and my throne and say goodnight, Sasha.”

“You just said twenty minutes ago they were wasting your time!”

“Yes, _I_ can insult my shitty team, _you_ can’t.”

“That’s nonsense, we’re practically engaged, we have to love and hate all the same things.”

“You have terrible taste in everything.”

“Yeah, like my terrible taste in _you_.”

“I’m glad we can agree on that—that I’m the worst and you’re an idiot for liking me.”

“You’re the bigger idiot for being so likable. Oh, Misha just walked by and gave me such a look. Haha, he’s going to be so miserable in Halifax.” 

“Kris, too. Maybe they can finally be friends because they hate us so much.” 

“Misha doesn’t make friends.”

“Neither does Kris! See, they already have so much in common, Sasha. It’s perfect. What if we had two love connections in our family?”

“Don’t do that to our relationship,” Sasha said. “I don’t want to imagine our brothers together the way we are.”

“Neither do they, I’m sure. Good night.”

“Good night, Nicky. Remember, Halifax.”

“Yes, we’ll start planning for Halifax. I’ll tell my family it’s professional development.”

“Do you know,” Sasha began. “You say things like that and I think about how much worse your sense of humor will get for the rest of our lives. I can’t imagine us in the NHL yet, but I can already see you being thirty, forty, fifty years old, and I think—Nicky, you’ll always make me laugh.”

“Am I better looking when I’m thirty, forty, fifty?”

“I think so. I think you’ll get your mother’s hair color and your father and Kris’s glare when they remember how much I annoy them, but you’ll still never close your mouth on the ice.”

“I think my mouthguard is too big for my mouth. Is that possible? Is it possible I have a small mouth?”

“ _What?_ Get a custom one! You have all the money in Sweden and your coaches haven’t noticed your mouthguard is too big? NICKY.”

“It’s fine, I’ll take care of it.”

“You better, or I’ll send spies to take molds of your mouth while you sleep and get you a custom mouthguard myself.” 

“You won’t even make the guard yourself? Sasha. I thought you cared.”

“Ugh, go to sleep, I hate you again.”

“Good night, you’re terrible,” Nicky said. 

Nicky listened to Sasha’s fond laugh, his soft _good night_ , and then they hung up for real. As Misha had done on Sasha’s side, Kris casually strolled by his slightly open door and poked his head into Nicky’s room.

“Where do you find so much _bullshit_ to talk about with him?” Kris asked. “And when did your Russian get so good? Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.”

Nicky tucked his mobile under his pillow and ignored Kris’s second question. “I don’t know. It’s easy to talk to him. Sasha’s easy to talk to—haven’t you noticed? You’ve known him all your life.”

“I don’t trust people that happy and charming,” Kris replied. “It bothers me that nothing bothers him.”

“ _Everything_ bothers him,” Nicky said. “He just yelled at me because I’ve been wearing a bad mouthguard all this time in Malmö. He yelled at me because my team is wasting me. He—” 

Nicky knew what he wanted to say, but he was talking to Kris, who loved him but couldn’t muster an ounce of patience for him on his best days. Sasha, after all this time—he was something precious to Nicky. Every time he exposed Sasha to someone, the guilt gnawed at him for sharing Sasha with anyone who couldn’t appreciate him. 

But, for once, Kris looked like he was trying. 

“He puts on a good face, and he _is_ charming and gets along with people, but he’s—he feels _everything_ , Kris. I don’t know how to explain it.” 

Kris nodded, and he looked like he was seriously considering this information. 

“I want to go to Halifax for World Juniors,” Nicky said in this brief moment when things were okay between them. “It’s Sasha’s first time playing for Russia.”

Kris scrunched up his nose. “Halifax? Ugh. Fine. I’ll ask Mama. Anything to get out of New Year’s at the palace.”

“Exactly,” Nicky said. “And Misha will come, too, so you can commiserate about how much you hate us.”

“Or, we could abandon you both in the Atlantic,” Kris suggested. “You two won’t have to be princes anymore. Become fishermen or whatever they do in Halifax.”

Nicky grinned. “Thank you, Kristoffer.”

“What, for promising to abandon you on the first iceberg we see?”

“Your most thoughtful Christmas present yet!”

Kris rolled his eyes. “Go to bed. I’m tired of looking at you.”

“Good night, big brother! No, _best_ brother.”

Kris groaned and left, shutting the door on possibly the most pleasant conversation they had ever had in their lives. 

*

They were at World Juniors a month later. Every Halifax arena had a secure box for members of the royal families where Kris and Nicky sat for every game they attended. There were some customs of propriety that if an actual monarch arrived to a game, the first row of the box would be for members of their family/entourage, but the monarchs themselves rarely attended so Nicky felt comfortable dragging Kris out of their hotel stupidly in advance of every game to get the best seats in the box, since they _had_ to sit in the box. 

Russia was playing the United States first and Nicky leaned forward, his elbows up on the edge of railing to see the Russian players when they came out onto the ice to warm up. 

“You know this is broadcast on television,” Kris muttered to him the second time he had to pull Nicky back into his seat. “Please don’t make me watch you drool.”

“Then don’t look,” Nicky snapped. 

“God, really? It’s _Sasha_.” 

One of Sasha’s calls before the holiday break mentioned that in addition to being the youngest guy on the national junior team, he was also the tallest, which Nicky absolutely didn’t believe because Sasha didn’t need to take on that kind of _yes of course he’s the tallest, the tallest ever, the most Sahsa ever_ stature in Nicky’s mind. It also probably wasn't true, as much as the Russian national team wanted their prodigy and their prince to also be very, very tall. As Nicky caught sight of Sasha on the ice, he laughed and nudged Kris’s knee. “Did you see Sasha? Look at him, he’s so skinny. I can see his cheekbones from here.”

“Oh, god,” Kris sighed. “It’s not the most handsome family—”

“Shut up, no one asked you.” 

“The children don’t _have_ to be his, biologically, I’m sure we could negotiate—”

“Shut _up_ , Kris!” 

“Keep it together, they haven’t even started playing.” 

“I don’t have to keep it together,” Nicky muttered uselessly. He put his feet up on the edge of their box, but Kris kicked him so he’d sit up straight again. “Am I allowed to do _anything_?”

“Keep it together in front of your future husband and the international media, or Mama will never let us leave the country without her again.”

“Why should I keep it together? He’s already going to marry me. What’s wrong with watching him play and hoping he does well? He’s my best friend, how is this _new_ to you?”

“Nicky, your relationship is an arrangement, a treaty,” Kris said. “After the two of you get bored of playing hockey, you’ll live together, have some children and send them off to boarding school, take a family vacation once a year, and you do whatever you want with the rest of your life. You’ll hold his hand at cocktail parties and let the real diplomats do the work. It’s political nonsense and I don’t know who told you two that you had to take it so _seriously_.”

For all that Nicky and his brother had a complicated relationship, Nicky did listen to Kris’s advice much of the time, especially now that they were both adults living away from school, away from their parents. Kris was a few months older than Sasha, but Kris’s life outside their family and their palaces was a mystery to Nicky and, sometimes, he made sense.

However, this was advice that Nicky felt extremely confident ignoring with his whole entire heart. They watched as Russia won their first game 5-1 against the United States. Once it was over, Nicky bolted out of their box, Kris and their security detail in tow, to congratulate Sasha. 

The Russian team’s changing room was still full of players and staff, and interviewers from just about everywhere talking to the coaches and select players. Nicky stretched a bit and, of course, the thickest part of the crowd was around Sasha, Sasha and his cheekbones, his sweaty hair going in every direction. Sasha’s eyes glanced off to the side and he caught sight of Nicky. His whole awkward mess of a face lit up at seeing him. 

“Christ,” Kris sighed under his breath. He whispered to Nicky, “Try not to embarrass your country,” before he nudged Nicky into the path that had opened through the reporters to Sasha. 

Sasha put an arm around Nicky’s waist, but didn’t kiss him in front of the cameras. They beamed at each other like idiots and it occurred to Nicky that he should say something, because he was just shoving himself into Sasha’s interviews like he had been the one to score three goals in his first World Juniors outing.

“Sweden doesn’t play until eight,” Nicky said in Russian. “Not a bad show to warm up the crowd.”

“What did you think of my hat trick?” Sasha asked, because of course he had scored a hat trick in his first game at his first World Juniors. 

“Like I said, not a bad show.” 

Sasha made a face for the reporters, who laughed and continued to snap photos of them. 

“I can’t show you so much favoritism when Sweden hasn’t even played yet,” Nicky said. 

“Sure you can,” Sasha said. “Just say, _Sasha, you’re my favorite of anyone, anywhere_ , and that’s that. Look at me. How could Sweden blame you?”

“Oh, god, I’ll leave you to your adoring public,” Nicky said. 

“Prince Nicklas, can we expect you and Prince Alexander playing against each other at next year’s World Juniors, or even at Worlds this spring?”

Nicky smiled very politely. “It’s still only my first year in the junior league, so I won’t be eligible for the national team at Worlds for some time.” 

“But World Juniors, next year,” Sasha interrupted. “We’ll have such a good rivalry, Nicky. The writers in Hollywood are already writing the movie about it. Inspired by true events.” 

“If it’s an American movie, Sweden will have to win,” Nicky said. “And whoever plays you will need an evil mustache. You’ll shave it off before the final, and I’ll know you’ve seen the error of your ways. I don’t write the rules, I’ve just seen enough American movies.”

“I promise,” Sasha said. “I’m never growing a mustache. We forbid them from casting someone with a mustache to play me, okay? Or one of those little evil beards. None of that.”

Nicky laughed at him. “I have to watch another hockey game. Russia hasn’t won the whole tournament yet, it’s only the first day.” 

Sasha leaned in and whispered, “Stay for a little bit. The Dynamo owners and managers are here, and we should talk to them, okay? Can you stay a little?”

Nicky nodded and excused himself out of the press of reporters, making his way back to Kris, who was his usual disgruntled self. 

“Did I embarrass myself?” Nicky asked. 

“No more than usual, I suppose,” Kris said. “I have my phone on in case Mama sees and decides you said something deeply inappropriate and we have to be extra nice to our team to make up for it.”

“Our team?” Nicky asked. “Oh. Sweden.”

“Oh my god, just stop talking,” Kris said. “For the rest of this tournament, maybe the rest of your life. What did Sasha say to you at the end?”

“He asked me to stay for a little bit. Just to talk,” Nicky said. 

Kris hummed to himself, then caught the eye of one of their security detail. “I’m going to get something for us to eat, since His Highness the fuck over there is still talking about his total lack of defense with his adoring public. I’ll be back to get you. Don’t get into trouble.”

Aside from the way Kris spoke to him like he was a toddler, there was something about what Kris said that bothered Nicky. It was different, Nicky thought, the way he said _adoring public_ to Sasha, and the way Kris said it _about_ Sasha. Even if Sasha wasn't just about everything to Nicky, he didn't think it would sit well with him, at all, if he heard Kris speak about anyone else like that. It was worse when it was about Sasha, and Sasha wasn’t in on the joke.

Nicky let Kris go so he could hang back by the entrance to the changing room with the other half of their detail while Sasha finished interviews. 

Once the room emptied some, Sasha came over and led Nicky away. “Come on,” he said, and their detail followed. The owners and managers of several of the Russian teams were hiding away by a whiteboard around the corner, discussing plans for what looked like the next game before Sasha arrived, Nicky’s hand in his own. Sasha led Nicky to a very specific cluster of men in suits and smiled broadly at this particular cluster. 

“Hello again,” Sasha said. “We’re ready to talk now.”

The man in the best suit stepped forward and offered his hand to Nicky. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Your Highness,” he said in Russian. “Sasha talks of no one else in his life.”

“Oh, god, that can’t be true,” Nicky said automatically. Nicky didn’t mean it to be that funny, but apparently it was. From the corner of his eye, Nicky could see Sasha was blushing and trying not to look away. 

“We know you have another game to see tonight, but we just wanted to offer you this before you left, and perhaps we could meet this week to discuss,” he said. 

“Discuss…?”

The owner of Dynamo looked to Sasha for a moment, then passed a large, thick envelope to Nicky. “A contract,” he said. “To play in Moscow next season. Not for the junior team, but with Prince Alexander on the men’s team. We’ve seen tape of your performance on the Malmö team, and we think we can offer an environment that would allow you to put on a better show, so to speak. This is just an offer for you to consider.”

“Okay,” Nicky said. “Okay.” He looked to Sasha, both their eyes as wide as dinner plates as they stared at each other. “I have to go. I have to—I have to meet Kris. And the game.”

“I can meet you at the arena,” Sasha said. “I’ll text you when I’m finished here.”

“Yes,” Nicky whispered. “Yes, I’ll. Yes, text me.”

Nicky was frozen in place for another long moment until Sasha squeezed his hand and smiled at him. Nicky woke up a little and squeezed back, then abruptly left without a thank you to the men who had just spoken to him. 

By the time Sasha joined them in the royals’ box at the next arena for Sweden vs. Canada, Nicky was in the front row with his feet up on the edge of the box and an empty seat at his left side. 

“No Kris for this game?” Sasha asked as he took the empty seat.

“No, he’s—he’s on the phone with our parents,” Nicky said. “And my agent. And one of our ministers, and one of yours. And I think Misha is with them, too, they were texting.”

Sasha nudged a finger under Nicky’s chin to make Nicky look at him. “Did someone die?” he asked in Swedish. 

“No, no one died,” Nicky said softly in return. “They’re making a plan for my move to Moscow.” He grinned at Sasha. “I’m coming to Moscow. I’m going to live with you. We’re going to play hockey together.” 

Sasha yelled and pulled Nicky out of his seat, the two of them drawing too much attention from the other spectators in the box, especially when they started to jump up and down in front of the glass and scream in every language they could manage. The cameras in the arena caught on just as Nicky kissed Sasha, leaning up to make up for the height difference, his thumbs stroking over those beautiful awkward cheekbones that he was going to see every day next season, and every day for the rest of their lives. 


	3. Chapter 3

**INTERLUDE**

They hit a rough patch in 2010. Really, it was 2010’s fault for having the Olympics, Worlds, playoff desperation, and Nicky’s contract extension all within four fucking months of each other. 

Russia and Sweden finished fifth and sixth at the Olympics. This wasn’t the first time they had left their professional teams for a break playing on their national teams and ended up playing like absolute fucking trash, and it wouldn’t be the last, because _it wouldn’t_ , that was the circlejerk of professional hockey; whatever Don Cherry-shaped demon had accepted a vial of Sidney Crosby’s blood in exchange for Olympic gold in his home country had clearly been more interested in making _that_ deal than listening to any hopes and prayers Sasha offered. 

But Nicky had never been to the Olympics before. He had never even _seen_ events at the Olympics in person before, and he hadn’t been playing in two and three international tournaments a year the way Sasha had; it was World or World Juniors, and he didn’t have Sasha’s minutes or Sasha’s shot or—

Nicky was good, but he wasn’t Sasha, and sitting in sixth place at his first Olympics wasn’t something he could get over. He _wasn’t_ “just happy to be here.” Nicky wanted to win and, unlike Sasha, he didn’t always expect to lose. 

It took Sasha too long to figure this out. It took weeks of Nicky avoiding him in their own house, assisting his goals with a scowl on his lips, inviting out Sasha and the team more often than not so they would be too drunk and tired to talk or fuck when they got home, before Sasha realized that something was really fucking _wrong_.

And by the time the idea that Nicky wasn’t all right finally dawned on Sasha, they had lost to the fucking Habs in the first round of the playoffs.

They drank away the weekend after their playoff exit and that Monday morning, Sasha brought back breakfast, dropped the greasy bag on the bed next to Nicky, and pulled out their oversized summer suitcases from the closet. Their flight to Germany for Worlds was in two days and it was better to pack with a guilty, all-consuming hangover than to rush through it the morning of their flight.

Nicky woke up with a start, saw breakfast and the suitcases, then noticed Sasha. “I’m still dead, I don’t want food.” 

“I had hash browns in the car and feel _much_ better, and so will you,” Sasha said. He leaned over the bed and pulled the bag over so he could cram another hash brown into his mouth. “Come on, let’s suffer and pack for Worlds, then we can have a few days to fuck without sneaking around in—”

“I’m not going to Worlds,” Nicky said with his face half-buried in his pillow. “I told them after Vancouver to take me off the roster.”

“...what the fuck do you mean, you’re not going?”

“I said I’m not going, have fun, I’ll see you in Gävle when it’s all over.” 

“You’re not playing at Worlds, and you’re not coming to see me play, either,” Sasha said. 

Nicky pulled the sheets closer around his shoulders. 

“You waited until now to tell me?”

“Slipped my mind.”

“The fuck it did.” 

Nicky grabbed his phone and climbed out of bed. “You need to pack and I want to keep sleeping, so I’ll be in the guest room.” 

Not much shocked Sasha, but this did, and shocked him enough that Sasha did exactly as he was told: he stayed in their bedroom, packed his suitcase for the summer, then sat on the balcony of the master bedroom with a greasy bag of breakfast and ate it by himself. 

(The leftovers didn’t go to Nicky; Sasha threw the rest of the bag off the balcony and onto the back deck, because he had always wanted to throw something more solid than a condom water balloon off the balcony and there was no time like the present.) 

*

Nicky woke up much, _much_ later that day to Sasha sitting in an armchair at the foot of the bed in the guest room.

“It’s almost five, Nicky,” Sasha said. “You sleep good?”

“No, now that I know you were watching me sleep the whole time,” Nicky said. “What do you want?”

“I fucking live here, Nicky. I live here _with you_ , so tell me why you’re being like this.”

Nicky, in something like a concession, sat up in bed. Sasha was dressed better than usual—his jeans weren’t torn anywhere and his t-shirt was a plain red fitted shirt with nothing stupid across the chest. Nicky was well aware he smelled like a bar and his hair probably look some new kind of fucked they had never seen before.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice how fucked up you’ve been since Vancouver,” Sasha said. 

“I haven’t been fucked up,” Nicky said. “I _fucked up_ at Vancouver, but I—”

“You got six points at your first Olympics,” Sasha said. “I’ve never had six points, not this year, not at Turin. And I still haven’t won gold.”

“Six points in four games—do you know what people would say if I _didn’t_ score six points in four games during the season?”

“Who gives a shit? That’s the expectation of our shitty team in our shitty division; this is the _Olympics_. You showed up with the best team Sweden has ever had—”

“They won gold in 2006. Remember? At the _last_ fucking Olympics?”

“Shit. I forgot about that.”

“I didn’t.” Nicky looked down at his hands and said, “I played at Worlds that same year, remember? Four games, no points.” 

“So what about your contract?”

“Yeah, my extension.”

“When are you signing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“No.”

“You sure? You can tell me. Better you tell me now than I come back from Worlds and you’re living in Greenie’s basement or surprise traded somewhere.”

“Brooks has a better kitchen.”

“Yeah, with shit you don’t eat.”

“I can like kale.”

Sasha sighed. “All right, I suppose it’s better we dissolve our treaty now, so you can have Brooks’s kale and I’ll waste away here in Washington, forever.”

Nicky had to laugh at that. “Yeah, like you waste away every summer.” He rubbed a hand across his face and finally met Sasha’s eyes, which he had somehow managed to avoid for the entire conversation. “Is there any cold breakfast left I can eat as punishment?”

“First: no, I ate most of breakfast and then threw the rest off the balcony onto the deck, then I cleaned up the deck and ordered lunch, and then I ate most of lunch and didn’t save it, so we should go out to dinner now, at five o’clock, like we’re old. Second: you’re too Swedish to be that Russian. Don’t say weird shit like that.” 

“Okay.” Nicky leaned his head back against the headboard for a moment. “I hate losing. I _hate_ losing. I hate how much we lose. We’re not getting any better.”

“You’ve had a career-high in points, Nicky. This year. A contract year. We’ve made the playoffs every year you’ve been here. I didn’t play in a single NHL playoff game until the first year you got here. We’re getting better every year.”

“And this year, we lost to fucking Montreal.”

“Oh, the team that existed since the invention of hockey.” Sasha nodded seriously. “Never saw that one coming.”

“And Pittsburgh last year.”

“Zhenya’s not bad at this whole hockey thing. And other people on his team. That Canadian boy. What’s his face. I never remember. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because Zhenya carries that whole team on his crooked camel-face and he gets no thanks for it, just a big cup he only got to play with once over the summer. You saw it when he came to Moscow. It has a bunch of assholes’ names written on it.”

“Stop making me laugh, I’m serious.”

“Nicky, it’s a game, and you either stay here with me and our loser team, or you go back to Sweden and live with your parents.”

“All right, you made your point. I’ll shower and we can go out to dinner.” 

“Or you ask them to trade you! I—” Now it was Sasha’s turn to look at his hands and pick at a loose thread on his jeans. “We lived apart those two seasons, so we can do it again if you need to play somewhere else. I want you to be happy, okay? We were together before the NHL, we’ll be together after, too, so don’t stay here for me. Stay because you want to stay.” 

“They only want me for ten years.”

“Jesus Christ, _only_ ten years.”

“I know it’s a lot, but it’ll be up the season before yours. Then what?”

“That’s in _ten years_ , Nicky! We might be dead by then.”

“Sasha, for fuck’s sake, that can’t be your answer for _everything_.”

“It’s true! Nine years from now, if we’re still playing hockey, we’ll think about what to do. Anything could happen in ten years. Maybe there’s no more Washington because of the ice caps, or there’s no more NHL because Saxby Coffeesby declared himself supreme emperor of hockey and executed you and me first. Nicky, we could be _straight_ by then.”

“Bisexual.”

“No, _straight_ , I mean _really_ straight, where we punch each other in the arm and call each other _bro_ and never make eye contact for more than five seconds. That straight where you think vodka makes you gay. Haha, Nicky, remember how our mothers are the sovereign rulers of our home nations and our idiot brothers are the crown princes? Nicky, they could all _die_ tomorrow and we’d have to go be kings and also husbands, somehow.”

“We’d have to dissolve our treaty and… be… rulers…” Nicky could feel the horror twisting his face into something hideous. “Okay, you’ve made your point and you’ve somehow managed to depress me even more, so. I’ll shower. You pick somewhere to eat.”

“I can do that,” Sasha said. “Will you call your agent and talk about signing your extension?”

“Tomorrow. They said it takes a few days to write up the wording with the lawyers, so I’ll probably sign it while you’re at Worlds.”

It would be the first time Nicky wouldn’t be at Worlds to play against Sasha or cheer him on, but Sasha only nodded. “You take your time, but talk to me if something changes, please? Please text me or something. You could _call me_ on my phone and I wouldn’t faint, I promise. I’ll make Misha hold my phone the whole time and if you call, I’ll make him drag me off the fucking ice to talk to you.”

Something about that struck a chord with Nicky. He wanted to throw one of the bed pillows at Sasha, except they were all too big and Sasha wasn’t looking, distracted by something again. 

“Don’t joke about that,” Nicky said. “Don’t fuck up what you’re doing for me. Doesn’t it go both ways? You just said you’d want the best for me, even if I asked for a trade or didn’t extend my contract here. Don’t fuck up what you’re doing, not even as a joke, all right?”

Sasha nodded, but then he cleared his throat. “Okay, I won’t, but. You’re more important than hockey, okay? You’re playing the best hockey of your life and—Nicky, there’s nothing you could do that would make me love you less.” He looked at Nicky and smiled a little. “Genocide, animal abuse, those would make me reconsider, but losing at hockey? Come on.”

“What if it wasn’t worth it?” Nicky asked. “What if we did all this and it didn’t mean anything?”

Sasha left his chair and shrugged. “You take up archery or horse shows or cocaine, whatever people with our money and status do with their lives. I hope we do get our Stanley Cup one day and you’ll see how it changes fucking nothing.” 

_That_ pulled Nicky out of bed so he could follow Sasha down the hall back to their room. “Are you angry at me now?” 

“No, of course I’m not angry! We’re playing hockey because it was what we wanted to do, so why would I be angry that, suddenly, you need a medal and a trophy to tell you it was worth it?”

“Sasha, that’s who I am! I’m so proud that you know how good you are, but I need _proof_. I need medals and cups and trophies. I needed this house to tell everyone we belong with each other, and one day _soon_ I’ll need a ring to tell everyone that they can’t take me away from you.”

Sasha nodded. “Okay. Okay. Good that we talked about that.” He ran a hand through his hair and nodded at the bathroom. “Go take a shower. I’ll make a dinner reservation.”

“Is that all? That’s all you have to say?”

They stared at each other, but Sasha was the one to step into Nicky’s space and kiss him. Nicky was still angry, there was still so much fight in him, but Sasha opened his mouth under Nicky’s and deepened the kiss, his hands grasping tight at Nicky’s sides. When Sasha broke the kiss, when he pulled away, Nicky kept his eyes closed because he couldn’t believe how stupid he had been, to avoid Sasha like this for as long as he had. For fucking _weeks_ , he couldn’t forget losing at the Olympics, but he had forgotten what Sasha was to him. Now they were stepping around that thing that had hung over them for as long as they could remember, and where it had once been something brilliant, to spend their lives with each other, Nicky had just—

Fuck, what had he done?

Sasha whispered, “We’re not proposing like this. Not after a fight. Not just to make you stay. I’d hate you if you said yes like this. We’d never forgive each other. You play hockey and you stay with me because you want to do it, not for me. Not for that treaty. Are we clear?”

“All right,” Nicky said. “Not now, not like this, but those are things I want. Sasha, they’re things I need.”

“I know,” Sasha said. “I know now. I’ll remember, and you remember we’re trying, okay?”

“Okay,” Nicky said. “Okay, I’ll remember.” 

*

Russia won silver at Worlds and Sasha had never been so grateful to lose to the Czech Republic because at least it wasn’t fucking _Canada_. 

(Sweden came in third. Maybe Nicky would have had a medal, if he wasn’t so intent on cursing himself and removing himself from all possible disappointments in a disappointing world. 

(Or, Nicky was actually cursed and they would just have to live with that.)

After Worlds, Sasha traveled with Misha and their parents from Germany back to Moscow. His parents weren’t due to leave for another state visit/vacation/whatever for another week, so they prepared his old room in the Moscow palace and left menus in his room of every meal designed to stuff him and slow him down from leaving for Gävle right away. 

(He texted Nicky to tell him he was in Moscow, and maybe Nicky would like to take a break for a little bit to see Sasha’s parents before they all went their separate ways. Nicky declined; Sasha should have some time alone with his parents. How fucking considerate of him.)

After one day and two nights of eating and drinking with his family, quietly dodging their questions about a wedding date (“Even a wedding _year_ , Sasha, do you think you’re getting _more_ desirable every year you wait to marry that boy?”), Sasha woke up to another note left for him on the desk in his room.

Of course his parents had left days early for their next trip. Of course he woke up, in this bedroom, in this palace, with only the staff showing signs of life while also trying not to disturb him. Of course his brother wasn’t staying in the palace with him; Misha was still living in their house downtown, and why would he have mentioned that there was a chance their parents would leave days earlier than they promised, that he would wake up completely alone?

Why was he the one always left behind? Why wasn’t he enough to make people stay?

Sasha packed his bags and left for Gävle that afternoon. Nicky met him at the private airport outside the city and drove them back himself; when they arrived, Sasha excused himself and went straight to bed while it was still light out. 

(If Nicky could throw a fit and leave him alone in their bedroom to pack, if _Nicky_ could sleep the whole day away without speaking to him, cut him off without a word until he deigned Sasha worthy to receive his precious thoughts and insecurities, then Sasha could do the same.)

Of course, this meant that the next morning, Sasha was up earlier than the rest of the family. He wandered down to the kitchen and greeted the staff, asked how they had been, if there was any new gossip he should know about, then wandered off with a mug of coffee for himself. 

For the first time in years, probably, he wandered through the Gävle palace and took in the details of the place where he lived every summer. There were superficial changes wherever he looked—paint retouched, portraits removed to be cleaned, new furniture in some of the rooms. One of the libraries was being emptied piece by piece for cataloging and to switch in new books from whatever larger collection Sasha had never seen. Sasha had never thought of the palace as the off-season tourist attraction/museum it was when he wasn’t living there, but he supposed it was fine, for what it was. 

Nicky’s room (their room, it was their room now; they had been officially sharing Nicky’s suite since the summer after Nicky moved to Moscow at sixteen) was on the second floor with several other suites. The suite Kris and his new wife shared was at the other end of the hall from them, with other guest suites between the two. 

(Nicky and Kris’s parents had the sovereign’s suite on the third floor, a massive suite that took up half the palace and shared the other half with yet another library/smoking room/room with giant stuffed animal heads on the wall, as if any fucking one of them ever went hunting.) 

Across from Nicky’s suite was an old playroom that they hadn’t actually played in since Nicky was about seven or eight. Kris had stopped going to the playroom as soon as his room had a television and cable installed, and Nicky did the same once his parents allowed him the privilege of a tv, cable, _and_ a vcr in his very own room. The palace still kept the playroom open for guests with young children, even now when the children raised here (Nicky and Kris and Sasha) were the ones inviting guests with small children who needed to be corralled into a playroom. Sasha, feeling nostalgic, peeked inside, maybe for the last time; the playroom would be completely redone in the winter to prepare for the arrival of Kris and his wife’s first child, and the first summer the baby would spend in Gävle.

Inside, the room looked the same as it had always looked, just with updated game consoles from the time someone’s children complained they were out of date. It looked exactly the same and if Sasha held his breath, he could see himself as a kid of five or six, sitting in a corner of the playroom while Kris and Nicky watched him from the other corner and debated whether he was worth their time. It was a lonely hour or so before toddler Nicky dragged as many of his toys as possible over to Sasha’s favorite spot and used toddler logic to introduce them to Sasha in some mix of Swedish, English, and really terrible Russian. 

Sasha shut the door behind him, not because of the playroom’s memories, but because he remembered the large room next to Nicky’s that had been properly his, before Nicky quietly insisted that he stay in his room the entire summer—what was the point of having Sasha at the palace if not to spend every moment with him?

(There were lots of points, high above their metaphorical pay grades, but it didn’t faze them.) 

When Sasha slept badly his first few summers in Gävle, it was because he was alone in that big room that reminded him of his room in Moscow. He dreamed of the vacations when he was home from school and there was no hockey to play with his school team, when Seryozha was out with his friends, Misha was avoiding people (his brothers) in his room, and his parents were traveling often as part of their responsibilities. He would dream of the endless days he spent in that empty palace, reading books, playing video games by himself, and waiting for people in the palace to find him and talk to him as they tidied the rooms and went about their business. 

When Nicky made him sleep over in his room—when they stayed up watching tv all night, or sat on the balcony and talked all night, and when they woke up and made plans for what to do with every new day—Sasha would sleep without dreaming. He was so relieved to sleep. For all of Gävle’s problems, at least Sasha was never lonely. 

When Sasha returned to their room, Nicky was awake, scrolling through his phone with an eye on the door. He watched Sasha close the door behind him, take off his shirt, and come back to bed. Sasha climbed in on Nicky’s side and curled up behind him. He pushed one of his thighs between Nicky’s and pulled Nicky tight against his chest. 

“Are you still upset with me?” Nicky asked. 

“I’m trying not to be,” Sasha said. “Are you still upset with me?”

“It—it wasn’t with you. I was upset with myself. Then you said those shitty things about how rings and trophies shouldn’t matter to me, when they do matter to me, and then I was upset.”

“So… you’re still upset.”

“Not so much,” Nicky said. “I know what I want. I’m not ashamed.”

Sasha let himself be quiet for a few moments so he could feel Nicky breathing in his arms, the scent of his hair, his skin, the way his muscles tensed and relaxed with every breath. 

“That morning when you walked out—please don’t do that again,” Sasha whispered. “Don’t walk out like that. Don’t avoid me. I can stand a lot, and argue a lot, and—and we want the same things, but I can’t stand it when you—Nicky, you just walked out of our bedroom, you _left_ , to teach me a lesson.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicky said.

“I’m sorry, too,” Sasha said. “I want medals and trophies, but it’s easier not to think about it until they’re in my hands. I’m trying, Nicky. I know you want them.”

“I know you’re trying.” Nicky pried Sasha’s hands off him, then turned in his arms so he could tuck his face against Sasha’s neck, their bodies pressed chest to chest. “And I want you. Did you forget?”

“I remember. I want you, too.” Sasha took a sharp breath. “Your extension?”

“Ten years.”

“In Washington?”

“Are you completely out of your fucking mind? Do you think I would be here, so calm and quiet, if I had secretly signed somewhere else without you?”

“Probably? I would be disappointed, but—”

Nicky pulled Sasha closer. “Don’t finish that fucking sentence. I’m staying. I won’t leave you. We’re done arguing, at least until the next Olympics.”

“Okay, it’s a date.”

“You dick, I can’t believe you would ask me that.” Nicky sighed and relaxed his grip on Sasha a little. “Just hold me and tell me we won’t fight anymore.”

“Anything you want, Nicky, anything.”


	4. Chapter 4

**SASHA**

It was 2003 and Nicky’s first season playing for Moscow would be Sasha’s third and last. Sasha turned eighteen that fall and he would be eligible for next spring’s NHL draft. He would play a full season with the Superleague, play for Russia’s national teams at World Juniors in December and Worlds in April (he wouldn’t acknowledge next September’s World Cup of Hockey as a thing until he had to, _if_ he had to), then he would be drafted in June. He and Nicky would spend the summer in Sweden, then return to Moscow to pack up his life and move to… wherever. Wherever he was wanted. 

That kept Sasha awake at night—that he was a prince of Russia, tied to his country and his city his entire life, and he didn’t know where in North America he would live in one year’s time. In one year, he and a suitcase and a gear bag would land somewhere in North America. He would have hockey, and he would be the one to start a life for himself and for Nicky. 

Nicky was sleeping in Sasha’s room of the house Sasha and Misha shared. He had his own room, but Sasha bought an even larger bed when Nicky moved in so that Nicky could have his own space and not be bothered by Sasha’s occasionally restless sleeping. Except, Nicky hadn’t yet realized that even if he kissed Sasha goodnight and edged over to his side, he kept migrating to Sasha’s side in the night. Sasha would wake up with Nicky’s forehead against his shoulder, a hand on his arm, his hip, his waist, and all his warmth against Sasha’s side. 

It was hard to think about leaving this when he was already so wanted. 

Sasha was awake a few minutes before his alarm and Nicky, his hand on Sasha’s waist, slowly opened his eyes. He woke up little by little and then looked at Sasha, embarrassed. 

“I keep telling you, just push me back to my side, but you never do it.” Sasha watched him burrow deeper into his pillows and his sheets. It was awful, how briefly he would have this.

“I never will,” Sasha said.

“I’m not awake enough to be this sentimental,” Nicky complained into his pillow.

“I’ll go shower so you can put on your little grumpy shell.” 

Sasha moved to leave, but a hand reached out and pulled him back with a surprising amount of strength for someone who had just woken up. 

“I’ll be grumpy later,” Nicky mumbled as he tucked himself close against Sasha. 

Sasha shut off his alarm, then turned back to Nicky and pressed a kiss to his mouth. His hand moved to the small of Nicky’s bare back as he kissed the corner of Nicky’s mouth. “Come on, let’s do this in the shower.”

“But I’m warm _here_ ,” Nicky whined. He bared more of his neck to Sasha’s lips and really, Sasha was losing the strength of his convictions with this whole leaving-the-bed thing that sounded fine just moments earlier. “Will you at least kiss me before we brush our teeth?”

“Come on, Nicky, I have standards.”

“But _I’m_ a disgusting teenager, so let me have what I want. I don’t _know_ any better.” 

Sasha pressed another kiss to the line of Nicky’s jaw, then pulled away and left. Nicky groaned behind him, but in another moment they were standing in their bathroom, Nicky’s arms wrapped around Sasha’s waist. He pressed a kiss to Sasha’s shoulder, then hip checked Sasha away from the sink so he could grab his toothbrush. “You’re very persuasive in getting me here.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Nicky shot him a look, then looked down at his toothbrush. “You’re very persuasive,” he repeated, then shoved his toothbrush in his mouth and went to start the shower. 

*

On some level, Sasha understood that spending the summers with Nicky, writing him letters when they were at separate boarding schools a hundred years ago, talking to him on the phone for most of last year, they were all just a toe in the water compared to diving headfirst into Nicky’s first season as a professional hockey player. It had to be something else entirely for Nicky, too, living in a city and speaking in a language that he knew but wasn’t his own. 

On another level, actually playing with Nicky was, maybe, the revelation of his whole entire life. His sarcastic friend who could recite _Dumb and Dumber_ from start to finish, his quiet boy from the late night phone calls (and his letters, all those letters while they were at school), his tightly smiling prince who had held his hand so patiently for years now—none of those boys were the pure fucking fury that Sasha helped unleash onto Moscow and the Superleague. 

One night in October, after ten games together on the same line, they were playing Nizhnekamsk and Sasha went down on a trip from someone’s stick and skate. Sasha wasn’t even up yet when a blur of white and blue sped around him and smashed into the asshole who had tried to glide past him. 

There was Nicky, pinning someone to the boards with his shoulder and yelling at them in beautiful, truly profane locker room Russian that his brain had already absorbed. Dima, their other winger who had nearly ten years on his linemates, helped pull someone else off Nicky while their team slapped their sticks against the boards, and their home crowd cheered for—

God, they cheered for Nicky, the Prince of Sweden who was bleeding from the corner of his mouth and still shouting.

“FUCK THAT ASSHOLE,” Nicky yelled in English as Sasha came closer. “What the _fuck_ , why don’t they call that trip before they call _me_?” 

Sasha laughed and dragged Nicky into a quick one-armed hug before the ref led Nicky to the penalty box. They positioned themselves on the ice again and Dima slapped Sasha on the shoulder. “Now I get it,” Dima said, looking to the box where Nicky was staring straight ahead at the game, like he had shut out the entire world. “I get how you work now.” 

“All my life I’ve known him,” Sasha said. “You think someone would have said, _by the way, your future husband REALLY likes to fight_. You think I would have noticed.” 

“Marriage is full of surprises,” Dima said. “Trust me. Just the beginning.” Dima slid over a little and tapped Sasha’s stick with his own. “And he fights for you, idiot. I saw that—didn’t you?” 

*

Sasha loved his mother, loved her tremendously even if he sometimes had to do things like get into screaming arguments with her about his future and how much of it would be allocated to hockey and how much to the monarchy, but these were arguments that everyone had with their parents. He even loved her when she did things like send a car to the house because the three of them, he and Nicky and Misha, were summoned to dinner.

Sasha had just come out of the shower after practice and wrapped a towel around his waist when Misha had called him downstairs, while Nicky had thrown himself on their bed to check in with home when he knew his parents and Kris were likely too busy to answer. 

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Misha asked when Sasha came down in his towel. 

“Tell me what?” Sasha asked. 

“Mama wants us to start having dinners with her and Papa again, all three of us. She knows how busy you two are, so it’s only twice a month.”

“...the three of us?” Sasha asked. “Twice a _month_? _Every_ month?”

“Yes, three. Two of us and your Swede makes three. I’m going to get dressed. Go un-debauch your husband and tell him we have dinner plans,” Misha said as he left for his room. 

“Great, no problem, thank you for the heads up, asshole,” Sasha called up the stairs. He turned around to Petya, his parents’ driver, patiently waiting in their living room, and smiled at him. “Sorry, this was a surprise. We’ll hurry soon. How are you?”

“I will feel better once I know your mother won’t try to take my head off with a butter knife,” Petya said with a little smile.

Sasha couldn’t disagree with that, so he excused himself back to his bedroom with Nicky. 

Just outside the door, Sasha stopped to listen; Nicky wasn’t yelling or talking or sighing heavily, so Sasha tapped on the doorframe and came back into the room. 

Nicky still hadn’t showered; instead, he was lying across their bed, out of his clothes with his eyes glued to his phone as he texted. He looked so comfortable, so at home in this place that was Sasha’s, maybe comfortable enough that he thought of it as _theirs_ , now. As he came in, Nicky looked from his phone to Sasha. 

“You don’t have to knock. It’s our room,” Nicky said. 

“Suppose so,” Sasha said. “Didn’t want to startle you.”

Nicky looked at him again. “Do I startle?”

“I don’t know? Maybe? You—you get caught up in your head, I don’t want to surprise you.”

Nicky accepted that, then motioned at the door. “Who was it? I heard you yelling about Misha being an asshole tonight, unlike other nights.”

“Dinner with our parents,” Sasha said. “We’re all invited, yes, even you, and when I say invited…”

Nicky smiled with only a slight hint of panic around the eyes. “Right.”

“Petya’s downstairs waiting.”

Nicky nodded and stretched out along the bed. “I don’t have to shower for the King and Queen of Russia, right?”

Sasha kneeled at the edge of the bed so he could look down at Nicky—his hair going in every which direction, the little grin he was giving Sasha as he pulled away the towel at Sasha’s waist. “You have a good point,” Sasha agreed. “You’re not messy enough for a shower yet. And then I’ll have to come with you—”

Nicky pulled Sasha in and kissed him; all things considered, they weren’t _that_ late for dinner.

And all things considered, it was for the best that Nicky unwind a little before dinner with Sasha’s parents, the first of who knew how many. He, Nicky, and Misha sat in the backseat as Petya drove them to the palace, Sasha in the middle with his hand clasped in Nicky’s. 

“Do your parents like me?” Nicky asked.

“Sure,” Sasha said.

“You’re fine,” Misha added. 

Nicky looked over at both of them. “What kind of a half-assed answer is that? _Sure_? _Fine_?”

“Why are you nervous? You’ve been meeting monarchs, princes and princesses, war criminals and despots, all your life. It’s just our parents.”

“Yes but—we’ll be family one day. Do they like me, or do they tolerate me?”

“To be fair, they don’t much like anyone,” Misha said. 

“Do _you_ like me?” Nicky asked Misha.

“Sure, you’re fine,” Misha said. 

Sasha pulled Nicky closer and shot Misha a look. “Of course they like you. They _love_ you. If they really didn’t like you, they wouldn’t have invited you to dinner.”

“Yes they would have. We’re royalty. What are our lives if not highly publicized dinner parties with people we loathe?”

“This isn’t a state dinner, it’s a family dinner,” Misha said. “You’re family, and you’ll probably regret that once Mama and Papa really like you.”

Sasha wondered about that; it had been too long now, and he couldn’t remember if Seryozha brought girlfriends to meet the family, considering the production that would have been, even when Sasha was a child. If Misha had someone in his life, it wasn’t anyone serious enough to bring back to their house, or be seen with in public, and certainly not serious enough to introduce to their parents. Sasha was luckier than he realized, to have Nicky like this, and to always have had him, and now have him within arm’s reach every single day. 

They arrived at the palace and Nicky climbed out of the car with his hand held out for Sasha. “What a gentleman,” Sasha joked, except Nicky’s hand was shaking a little. He tucked Nicky’s arm along his own, covering his hand, in hopes it would do some good. “Do you remember that New Year’s Eve when you called me about the video games?”

He looked over; Nicky was blushing and pretending to pay attention to the decorative elements of the palace around them. “I do. That was—yes, I remember.” 

“You went back to boarding school and sent me a letter about _Donkey Kong Country_. I don’t know how we managed to talk about video games in _letters_.”

“Well, it was talk about video games or talk about school, so.”

“Hey,” Sasha whispered. “This will be the first New Year’s we spend together. We’re going to see 2004 together.” 

“In Helsinki,” Nicky said. “One day. One day, we’ll have New Year’s in Moscow. I promise.”

“ _I_ promise. That’s my promise to make.”

“You’ve been offering it as long as I’ve known you, so now it’s my turn to promise I’ll do it. I’ll be there.”

From ahead of them, Misha called out, “I’ve lost my appetite. I can’t wait to have dinner with real company, like _Mama and Papa_.” 

Sasha touched Nicky’s cheek and stole a quick kiss. For all that Misha complained at them, he arrived at the dining room first and loudly threw himself at their parents, harping on how _annoying_ it was to live in the same house with two little brothers. 

Sasha and Nicky arrived at the door and Nicky froze in place, an iron grip on Sasha’s hand. Misha, Mama, and Papa all turned to them; his parents had friendly enough smiles on their faces to welcome them, but Nicky still didn’t move. 

“Thank you for inviting me, Your Majesties,” Nicky said quickly. “I appreciate being here. I’ve never been to this palace, and I find it now to be very beautiful. Thank you very much.” 

“Oh, Sasha,” his mother sighed. “What terrible things have you been telling him about us? Why is he so scared! Look how handsome he is! Papa, look how good Russian hockey is for Nicklas—this isn’t the same kitten we saw in June, no, not at all.” 

“Okay, I think _maybe_ this is worse than if they hated me,” Nicky whispered in English to Sasha. Sasha laughed and pulled Nicky into the room, letting his hand go so his parents could embrace him and embrace Nicky, who didn’t wither and die in those few moments. 

Dinner was fine, with Misha catching his parents up on his university courses and Sasha and Nicky discussing how their season was going, so it wasn’t until the second course that his parents began the deeper dive into Nicky’s life.

“Ignore whatever Misha told you about these dinners,” his mother said to Nicky, who still had a chunk of sliced beet stuffed in his cheek like a squirrel. “We try to have the boys over twice a month, every month, because that’s all our various schedules will allow. Interestingly enough, Nicklas, your brother actually contacted us in hopes that we would reach out to you while you were in Moscow—as if we would just leave you without any kind of guardianship while you lived here.”

Sasha huffed a little. “Mama, why do you say it like that? I’m responsible, our house is in good shape, we eat vegetables sometimes—look at him right now, he’s showered and everything.”

“Despite your best efforts,” Misha muttered near Sasha, before he raised his voice for their parents. “You won’t be surprised what Sasha’s like when the team gives him more than a day off.” 

“I resent that,” Sasha said.

“And as someone who shares the kitchen with you: so do I,” Misha said.

“All right, play nice for Nicklas, don’t scare him back to Sweden now,” Papa interrupted. “Was your team so bad, Nicklas, that you wanted to try at another league? Or was it Sasha’s irresistible charm?”

“Oh my god, please, can we talk about television or something,” Sasha whined. 

“What charm?” Nicky asked Sasha across the table. “You dragged me over to see the Dynamo owners, then you said _here he is_ and they handed me a contract.”

Misha burst out laughing. “I feel a lot better about this love story of ages, now that we’re seeing the underwhelming part.”

“Really? Was that all?” Sasha’s mother asked Nicky. “The way Kristoffer put it—well, not to question my son’s intentions, but we thought, perhaps, that both your feelings had interfered with your good sense. That isn’t to say we aren’t pleased to have you in Moscow, Nicklas—”

Sasha couldn’t help the incoherent, outraged noise that came out of his mouth before he could piece his thoughts together. “The contract did all the explaining!” Sasha said to Nicky. “I wanted you to play your best hockey and, since Malmö made you unhappy, maybe that could be with Dynamo.” Sasha looked down at his plate and didn’t even see what he was supposed to be eating. “I wanted you to come for hockey and be happy with hockey, not—we already have the treaty on us. You didn’t need one more thing dragging you here if you didn’t want to be here.” 

It took Sasha a few seconds to notice that everyone at the table had gone very, very quiet. He looked at his parents first and saw their indecipherable looks to each other and to Sasha. Misha stared at him, too, and looked more thoughtful than he ever had in his life, maybe.

Across from him, Nicky was still, his empty fork hovering just over his plate. He stared at Sasha, his head tilted just a little bit to the side, and then he pushed a bit of hair over one ear. Nicky met Sasha’s eyes again and he bit the inside of his bottom lip before he spoke again.

“I’m happy here,” Nicky told him in Swedish. “I’m happy I get to play hockey with you. I’m so happy I get to be here with you. I want to be here, Sasha.”

Sasha nodded. He kept his smile to himself before he turned to his parents again. “Nicky’s been invited to play for Sweden at World Juniors. Isn’t that good for him?”

*

Stealing Nicky from the Swedish junior league was a wake up call to the idiots running their national team, who finally invited sixteen-year-old Nicky to play for them at World Juniors. 

For the schedulers-turned-gossip columnists planning the World Juniors lineup, it woke them up to the idea that, maybe, the middle of the first week should feature Russia vs Sweden, prince vs prince, all sorts of competitive nonsense that maybe wouldn’t be nonsense once they were actually on the ice. 

Before that game Nicky, nonchalant as anything, skated to the Russian side of the ice where Sasha was stretching and warming up. “Remember,” he said in Swedish. “If you check me too hard, you’re the one who has to take care of my broken ass when we’re back home.”

Sasha laughed and shoved Nicky with his glove. He watched Nicky and his terrible little smirk glide backwards for a moment before he turned and skated back to their side of the ice.

Russia won 5-3 in a surprisingly tough game, tough in part due to Nicky’s teammates racking up a stupid number of penalties in the first period. That was _saying something_ , when Sasha’s team this year included Zhenya Malkin, who loved fuming in the penalty box as much as he loved putting people _in_ the penalty box so he could score on the power play. 

Malkin crowded behind Sasha in the handshake line and said, not quietly enough, “These are the guys who were 7-0 against Austria last night?”

“The Americans had eight against Austria, that doesn’t mean anything,” Sasha said. “It’s just Austria’s year to be fucking destroyed—and we play Austria tomorrow, so shut your mouth.” 

(Final score: Austria 1, Russia 3)

When Sasha came to Nicky, they embraced quickly and Nicky looked only a little murderous.

“Dinner?” Sasha asked. 

“We can drink in Finland, right?” Nicky asked. 

“You can’t, so I’ll buy,” Sasha said.

“Hello, I am Evgeni,” Zhenya said as he pushed Sasha ahead and shook Nicky’s hand. “I’m inviting myself to your dinner with Prince Sasha because I can’t buy alcohol in Finland yet.”

Nicky was being pushed ahead by his teammates, but that didn’t stop him from turning around and asking, “Who?”

Misha was out on his own, but Kris joined the three of them at dinner. Zhenya was somehow even more pleasant of a person than Sasha and therefore a dozen times more irritating to Kris.

“You were hurt or something, Zhenya, when we played Magnitka earlier this season, right? I wanted to introduce you then, but you didn’t travel with the team,” Sasha said, looking from Zhenya to Nicky. “And you’re like Nicky, Zhenya—first year in the Superleague, first year at World Juniors. And the NHL is looking at him, too.” 

“Yes, but I’m a little older than His Prince-ness of Sweden, aren’t I?” Zhenya asked. “So you and I will both be at the draft this spring, Sasha.”

“Will there be _any_ Russian hockey players left in Russia after this year?” Kris asked. “Is there anyone left in Russia for your parents to rule over, Sasha?” 

Sasha gave Kris a bland look. “Zhenya and I are the top prospects for the draft this year. Let me take one person I know with me and I’ll have one friend in North America before your brother arrives in two years.” 

“He’s not coming this year _or_ next year?” Zhenya asked, looking between Sasha and Nicky. “You’re going two years without him?” Sasha wasn’t sure who Zhenya addressed with that question. Maybe it was both of them. 

Sasha shrugged. “I want to be in the NHL, I can’t put off North America for two seasons.”

“Two _years_?” Zhenya asked. “So he—” Zhenya shook his head and actually addressed Nicky. “You’ll stay and play for Moscow two more seasons until you’re drafted?” 

“That’s the plan,” Nicky said, nodding. “I have a November birthday and they’re strict about the age limit. Sasha would have gone this past spring, but the cut-off is September 15 and he wasn’t eighteen until September 17.” 

“That’s fine,” Sasha said. He put an arm around Nicky’s shoulders and kissed his hair. “If I left, I would have missed your first season here, your first World Juniors—your _international debut_ ,” he said carefully in lofty English that made Zhenya laugh and Kris crack a smile. “And it’s good we have separate draft years, or we’d be on different teams. Or one of us would go second round and then we might as well stay in Russia.” 

“You’ve lived together three months,” Kris scoffed from his corner. “And you’re going to live apart for two years, Sasha. Really. You’ll live.” 

“How can you be in a royal family and have no romance?” Zhenya asked as he turned to Kris. “Your little prince actually loves the man your family bartered for, and this is a bad thing?”

“My brother wasn’t sold,” Kris said, his voice tight. “It would have been dissolved if there was something wrong with Sasha. These arrangements are never as locked down as they appear.”

Sasha tensed, suddenly, but Nicky leaned into Sasha’s space, lowering his voice as he spoke across the table to Kris. “Wrong with him?” Nicky asked carefully. “What do you mean, _wrong_ with him? What do you mean, _dissolved_?”

“Nicky, it’s fine,” Sasha said as he poured each of them another drink. 

“No, we should explain to this person having dinner with us, since maybe he’s never read a history book,” Kris said, with a fairly obvious nod at Zhenya. Sasha poured Zhenya another drink from the carafe, too, if only so Zhenya would have something to throw in Kris’s face when this escalated past simple insults to a brawl in Helsinki. “Royal marriages are old things. Our families and governments wrote a treaty, but we wouldn’t have pushed Nicklas into this if Sasha hadn’t proved himself to be a decent, responsible person every summer he spent with us.” Kris took another sip of his drink and looked across the table, only at Nicky, as though Sasha wasn’t there. “Why do you think we had the two of you spend every summer together? For your health? If you two didn’t get along, or if once he was alone with you he _somehow_ —”

“That’s fine, Kris,” Sasha interrupted. “I’ve just remembered the team wanted to take Nicky and Zhenya out after the game, and it looks like we’re running late to see them, so.” Sasha stood up with Nicky’s hand firmly in his, but then let him go because he was not this person Kris imagined, he was not this person who would ever hurt Nicky, or steal him, or lure him away from his family. “Zhenya, come on, I’ll take care of the bill at the front.” Sasha left the table, digging in the inner pocket of his game suit for his credit card.

“Sasha, wait, please,” Nicky called out.

“Nicky, it’s fine,” Sasha said. He reached into another pocket and counted out several hundred euros as he searched the restaurant for their waiter. Once he overpaid for their supper, he led Zhenya outside into the cold. 

“Sasha, please!”

Sasha turned around and Nicky was there. He had rushed out after them. He stepped close to Sasha and took his hand, linking their fingers together, pressing warm against Sasha’s side. Sasha closed his eyes for a moment, then started walking quickly in the direction of their hotel.  

“Do you like your brother?” Zhenya asked Nicky. “Can I tell you he’s an asshole, or would you be offended by that?”

“I know he’s an asshole, but he’s my brother,” Nicky said. “Don’t you have siblings? That’s just how they are.”

“Maybe it's just Magnitka, then, where my brother and I care about each other. Don’t you do that in Sweden?”

“Fuck off.”

Sasha stopped his brisk walk once they were a block or two from the restaurant, the three of them standing in some city center of Helsinki. Sasha took deep breaths as he looked around the crowded space, looking for street signs and landmarks to find his hotel again, and to—

Fuck. How wonderful to discover that his entire childhood was a lie. How amazing, that the people he considered a second family, the people he trusted with his life every summer, the people who raised and took care of his Nicklas, only invited him to breathe the same air as them in hopes of catching him in a mistake. 

No, not just a mistake, but—but something worse, like a crime, something awful that would give them an excuse to banish him from Nicky forever, because this was just politics and not Sasha’s entire life. They had hoped to find something in him so horrible that it was worth severing international relations and the friendship of his whole life. They _wanted_ to find a reason to break his heart, because he was nothing to them but a foreign monster that wanted to rob them of their son. He wasn’t Sasha to them; he wasn’t a boy who had loved their son every day of his whole entire life. 

Sasha kept turning slowly in the city square, looking at the street signs he couldn’t read and trying to fill his lungs with air. He tried again and then he gave up, dropping Nicky’s hand before he crouched on the stone path around where they stood.

Nicky kneeled in front of him, his arms wrapped around Sasha as tight as they had been ages ago, when Seryozha was gone and Sasha had lived a year, a whole year of his life, shattered. That feeling was back now, and Nicky was doing his best to hold him together again. 

“It’s not true,” Nicky whispered. “It’s not true. I’m sorry he said those things, I’m sorry.” 

“I don’t know how else to show you that I love you,” Sasha said as he held on to Nicky, his voice rough and watery at once. “I don’t know what more I can do. I’ve loved you my whole life, Nicky, my whole entire life I’ve loved you, and no one will ever believe me.” 

“I believe you,” Nicky pleaded. “I believe you. I know you. I’ve always known you.” 

Suddenly, kneeling next to them was Zhenya, who put his arms around Sasha’s shoulders. “Come on, there’s already people taking shitty pictures on their phones. We’ll say he’s drunk and get to our hotel, okay? You and I are the happy drunks, Nick, all right? And Sasha had just a little too much.” Zhenya stood and hoisted Sasha up, Nicky taking his other side and draping Sasha’s other arm around his shoulders. “Sasha, did you teach him any good Russian drinking songs yet? Are there any good Swedish ones? Oh! What about ABBA? Is that what Swedes do when they go out drinking? You have all of ABBA in your blood, that’s a pretty good choice.”

“I’m not singing ABBA with you on the streets of Helsinki,” Nicky said to Zhenya. “And we have a _lot_ of pop music, not just ABBA. You’re a fucking joke.” 

“Five to three, little prince. That's a pretty funny joke to me.”

Sasha, the monster who was going to take advantage of Nicky and steal him from his country and ruin his life, knew what Nicky’s voice sounded like when he was crying but trying to laugh. That was how he laughed now, when Zhenya was showing off how terrible his English really was, trying to remember the words to “Dancing Queen” as they stumbled along. Thankfully, Sasha’s security detail showed up before they became even more hopelessly lost, driving them back to the players’ hotel and escorting the three of them back to the suite Sasha and Misha were sharing for the length of the tournament. 

“Are the extra rollaway beds in the royal suite closet just as luxurious as the ones in my commoners’ room?” Zhenya asked as he looked around the living room of the suite. 

Nicky and one of Sasha’s detail went to find the rollaway for Zhenya, while Sasha approached Zhenya slowly. “Thank you,” Sasha said. “Sorry you were there for whatever all that was.”

Zhenya shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my mouth shut. No one needs to know the Nobel Prize people are ruled by a bunch of assholes. Everyone should get to enjoy ABBA. I’m sure our beloved royal family has assholes, too.” 

“I must be the asshole, if they think so little of me,” Sasha laughed under his breath. “And I have too many penalty minutes, but that one’s catching up with me,” Sasha added, pointing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of where Nicky had disappeared. “Don’t worry, he’s—he’s so much better than his brother.”

“That’s not a vote of confidence,” Zhenya laughed. “But I understand what you mean.” Zhenya looked pensive for a moment. “Do they make the little candy fish? Are those actually Swedish?”

“Yes,” Nicky answered as he left the bedroom and pushed a rollaway bed out into the living room. “Sorry to ruin them for you.”

“No, I’ve never liked them, those rubbery pieces of shit,” Zhenya replied. “But if Sasha says you’re fine, then you’re fine.” He lightly hit Nicky on the shoulder, then went to the rollaway bed that waited for him in the center of the living room. “Go on, I need to go call a hundred gossip magazines before I pass out tonight.” 

They said goodnight as Nicky led Sasha to Sasha’s own room and shut the door behind them. Nicky then realized what Sasha had numbly not-felt for the past half-hour or so, that he had been walking around in Helsinki in the dead of December in just his suit, his coat forgotten at the restaurant with Kris and his really terrific emotional poison. “Come on,” Nicky said. “Hot shower and bed. I’ll put up the thermostat, too.”

Sasha said nothing, so Nicky led him into the shower and set the water to near scalding. He washed the last of the locker room shower and the last of the game off both of them. He wrapped Sasha up in a robe because after last year’s adventures in Halifax, he knew Sasha arrived in his suite every night and stripped off everything, took a shower, and put on a robe or just a towel because clothes could go get fucked, honestly. 

They sat in bed for a while, Sasha pulling the covers closer around him as exhaustion set into his bones. Nicky flicked off the lights and left only a small crack open in the curtains of the room so they could peek at the Helsinki lights beneath their room. Nicky didn’t bother sleeping on the other end of the bed; he curled up behind Sasha and tangled their legs together. 

Just as Sasha was dropping off into sleep, Nicky pressed a kiss to the nape of Sasha’s neck. “I’ve loved you always,” Nicky whispered. “Since you sent me a box of video games when I was seven years old. Since you stood with me in the library of the palace every summer I can remember, and you held my hand through our mothers’ boring press conferences and we couldn’t run from them fast enough. Since you—you said I was good enough to do anything I wanted, and you believed it. You believed me. And I believe you, Sasha. I always have.” 

Sasha pulled Nicky’s arm around himself, clutching Nicky’s hand in the center of his chest. Before he nodded off, he closed his eyes and whispered back, “I love you, too.”

*

Dynamo Moscow didn’t advance past the first round of playoffs. Nicky and Sasha started their off-season in the living room of the house in Moscow, debating who they hated least to win the championship. 

At least, Nicky was debating from the couch with his hand in a bowl of popcorn while Sasha was on the stationary bike over his shoulder, cycling through everything they watched until he made himself dizzy or until Nicky threw something at him because the noise of the bike was so irritating. 

“I’m not going to be one of the assholes who vomits on the bike at the combine,” Sasha said after he had rushed to the bathroom, vomited, brushed his teeth, and joined Nicky on the couch for a break. “You shouldn’t either. Go on, get on the bike, let me eat some popcorn.”

“This time two years from now, I’ll visit you for the spring in Washington and you can make me ride the bike until I vomit, just like you. For now, I’m going to lie here and do nothing,” Nicky said. “I think Zhenya and Magnitka will make it to the finals. Loser buys the winner a sushi boat.”

“Does that mean we can’t have a sushi boat until the finals decide who wins your bet?” Sasha asked. “Because I could use a sushi boat right now.”

“You’ll vomit all over our sushi boat right now. You’ll waste all that sushi.”

“No, no, I’ll vomit all over you now and by the time we get a sushi boat, I’ll be fine.” 

The couch was deep enough for both of them to lie down, with Sasha pulling Nicky down so he could curl up behind Nicky. The combine wasn’t for two months and the draft another two weeks after that, but unless Sasha literally fucking died in the intervening eight to ten weeks, he was sure of where he would be: Washington had won the draft lottery and they were absolutely positive in drafting Sasha in June and signing him to the team. At this point, he and Nicky knew the managers’ numbers as well as their own, for how often they called.

Better than that, the scouts were interested in Nicky, too. Their insane plan of drawing a firm line like the Sedins had done five years earlier (made more ridiculous with the two-year difference between their draft years) could actually fucking work. 

“What’s the first thing you want to see in Washington?” Sasha asked the curve of Nicky’s neck.

“I don’t know. We’ve been to Washington before with our families and it wasn't that impressive. You’ll have to spend the first year exploring and then tell me what’s good.” 

“You won’t come see me for New Year’s? Shit, you’ll be playing at World Juniors and I can’t go see your games. That’s it, fuck the draft, I’m not going.” 

“That escalated,” Nicky said. “A lot.”

“When you visit, we can go to the White House.”

“We’ve been to the White House. We’ve been introduced to presidents. We’ve seen a lot more of the White House than they’ll show you on a little tour. Will they even let you take a tour once you show up and tell them, _Yes, I’m THAT Alexander, my picture was on the front of every newspaper when I was five or six years old because I played hide and seek with President Bush when I was a child_.”

“How do you remember that? I don’t remember that.”

Nicky shifted a little on the couch and curled his shoulders a little, making himself smaller in Sasha’s arms. “I don’t know. Maybe I had that newspaper saved when I was little. Maybe I wanted to know more about you, so maybe I went into our palace archives—”

“Did you keep a secret scrapbook about me?” Sasha slipped his hand under Nicky’s t-shirt and whispered close to his ear, “Nicky, Nicky, how have you been my life all these years and never told me you had a _scrapbook_.”

“It wasn’t a scrapbook.” Nicky was doing his best to call Sasha’s bluff and keep talking, so Sasha changed tracks and reached for Nicky’s hip. “I didn’t paste them in a book and draw hearts, I just.”

“Hoarded.”

Nicky whined at him and kicked his shin. “This is why I never tell you anything.”

“Because it’s too cute, I know. I understand. Keep your secrets.”

“And you can play hide and seek with another President Bush, just for old times’ sake.”

“Ugh, don’t say that where people can _hear you_ ,” Sasha said. “And by people, I mean me.”

“Oh? Did just saying his name make you soft? Come on, Sasha, there’s a new Bush in town. You’ll probably get to meet him and whisper in his ear—”

Sasha took his hand off Nicky’s hip and left the couch to hop back on the bike. “Throw something at me in twenty minutes and maybe don’t bring up war criminals when I’m trying to get you off. What if we _had_ , Nicky? What if you had unlocked something terrible inside me?” 

Nicky just laughed at him and went back to his popcorn.

*

Nothing about June seemed real. 

He, Misha, and Nicky flew to North America for the week of the combine, Misha and Nicky for the “moral support” of teasing him once they left the training facility and all the cameras were off. Nicky sat in the backseat of their secure car with the darkened windows and Sasha flopped down with his head in Nicky’s lap, whining before they had even left the parking lot. 

“It didn’t hurt until now,” Sasha said. “It feels like I should still be lifting things. Oh, god, there were reporters there talking about how big I was as though I couldn’t hear them. Misha, they were standing there saying _he’s just so big_ , like we haven’t spoken fluent English since we were children? Why is this continent the way it is?”

“I know,” Nicky soothed. “What a good thing Europe exiled all the perverts before you were blessed to live on the face of the earth.” 

“This isn’t moral support,” Sasha said. “And I had to speak to all these sports psychologists, all of them asking me things like, _how do you think you will handle the pressure of professional hockey_ , or nonsense about life the spotlight, and—could they look me up before they wasted my time?” Sasha turned a little in Nicky’s lap so he could catch his attention. “And Zhenya wasn’t there!”

“Yes, Sasha, he texted me, too.”

“For some fucking trip he wanted to take with the club he won’t play with next season!”

“They did just lose the playoffs.”

“He better be prepared to lose all the playoffs when we’re all in the NHL together.”

Nicky stroked Sasha’s hair as Sasha wrapped an arm around Nicky’s knees. The nonsense about the sports psychologists wasn’t entirely true, but it was something to complain about up front before Misha or Nicky or his parents asked. The psychologists weren’t _that_ inept; they knew Sasha and his situation, and their questions were more probing, more detailed than he wanted to admit. He already handled the stress of the public eye, the stress of professional hockey, but what about all those in a foreign environment, in a culture he was somewhat familiar with but wasn’t his own? Could he think back to joining new collaborative situations, such as his team at the international school? When he joined Dynamo Moscow? His World Juniors teams? What was his role in each of those teams? How did he calibrate his schedule, his work ethic, his eating and self-care habits, his play, for each situation? Could he identify instances when he felt that the pressure was too great for him to handle? What emotional support system did he have in place to deal with the pressure? Did he practice any particular faith? 

What were the most important relationships in his life? What about his political partnership with the Prince of Sweden? Did he consider the prince ( _Nicklas, Nicky, his name is Nicky_ ) to be his primary partner? Would it make him more comfortable to refer to the prince as his partner? As his domestic partner? Had they discussed the particular scrutiny of the North American sports media and the pressures thereof?

Was his relationship with his partner a romantic relationship? Did he and his partner rely on each other exclusively for their emotional support and needs? Could he assign a numeric value to the balance of their relationship, i.e., 50/50? 70/30? What protocols did he and his partner have in place for emergencies? For injuries? Was their relationship in danger of being compromised by the strain of distance? Did he and his partner practice sexual monogamy? Did he believe his partner was prepared for the role of becoming an NHL spouse? With both he and his partner in the same professional field, had they ever encountered professional jealousy? What was the most significant challenge their relationship had faced to date? How had they faced that challenge? Historically, how often did he and his partner discuss their plans for the future? 

“Sasha, wake up.” Nicky’s hand was still in his hair. “Sasha, come on, we’re back at the hotel. You have to eat. And shower, please, god, you still smell like a gym.”

“Please emotionally support me out of this car, Nicklas,” Sasha said. 

“Do you want your first photos after the combine to be of me carrying you over the threshold of a Marriott? I can do it, Sasha, I will fucking do it.” 

Sasha sat up in the backseat of the car and looked at Nicky. “Yes,” he said, with absolute confidence. “Yes. Carry me into the goddamned Marriott, Nicklas, like you fucking mean it. Put your fucking back into it.”

Nicky burst out laughing and climbed out of his side of the car to do exactly that.

*

Nothing about the draft was real. Not the week of promotional videos and events with the other high-profile prospects, the strange bouts of nerves that asked Sasha to wonder if, maybe, Washington would change its mind at the last second and then no one would want him, after all. 

Nothing was real about the day of the draft—not Nicky sitting on the aisle, the player’s seat, so that Sasha could be sandwiched between Nicky and his father, not Misha and the camcorder he brought to _capture the memories_ of a televised event, not his name finally being announced, his team finally choosing him. 

(Not Zhenya finally showing up in America and going second, to fucking Pittsburgh, like the brilliantly smiling motherfucker he was, his face grinning on every monitor. _He_ was allowed to speak through a translator while Sasha tried not to let his voice shake as he answered questions.)

Nothing was real until the Capitals’ owner and managers called it a day and brought Sasha to a room in the sports complex where his family was waiting. Nothing was real until Nicky crossed the room towards Sasha, who was still wearing the giant black and blue jersey and cap. 

“Nick, you must be proud of him!” said the team owner. Nicky grinned and took Sasha by the shoulders, holding him at an arm’s length to look at him. 

“This jersey,” Nicky told Sasha in Swedish, “is the fucking ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life.” 

Sasha cackled and dragged Nicky in for a hug; in that moment, his ugly jersey and his ugly husband were the only things that fucking mattered. 


	5. Chapter 5

**NICKY**

All his life, time with Sasha felt stolen. Every summer they spent together was time when they were supposed to be behaving like good little princes who enjoyed carefully choreographed outdoor activities and polite small talk with any number of visitors who came to the summer palace in Gävle to pay homage to Nicky and Sasha, when there was a 90% chance one of them had a pocket full of kitchen snacks or a frog or something disgusting at the ready to embarrass their family or whoever was their minder that day.

The fall after Sasha was drafted, Nicky and Sasha returned to Moscow, both of them determined to begin packing Sasha’s things for his move to Washington. Sasha had yet to sign a contract for the season because of a rumored lockout, but the lockout wasn’t certain yet and neither was a backup plan in case of a lockout. 

Of course, just as they were in their bedroom, determinedly not packing, the call came through: there would be a lockout.

“Well,” Sasha sighed. “Happy birthday to me.” 

Nicky climbed on Sasha, straddled his hips and tightened his knees against Sasha’s sides. “If you don’t want another year with me, I’ll be more than happy—”

“I know,” Sasha said, reaching up to touch Nicky’s chest, fingers tracing across his skin feather-light. “I just—”

“It’s not a sign.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“No, of course you weren’t.” 

“I wasn’t!” Sasha pushed himself up on his elbows and pulled Nicky in for a kiss. “Help me figure out what to do. I always think better with you. Can’t you feel how much I want to think right now?”

Nicky laughed against his mouth and let Sasha pull him down to the bed. There they were, their separation delayed another season, but Nicky felt only urgency as he pulled down Sasha’s boxers and fumbled in getting his own off. He laughed and fell back on the bed as Sasha helped him, laughing at him, too. Sasha kissed him and reached under the pillows for the lube, even though Nicky was still loose from earlier in the day when—when Sasha was going to leave him. 

“What’s the rush?” Sasha asked as he slipped two fingers inside Nicky, his teeth grazing the edge of Nicky’s jaw. “I’m staying a while. We can take our time.”

Nicky closed his eyes so he could feel Sasha’s weight on his body, his fingers inside him, the faint scent of his aftershave from his shower hours ago, the sweat starting to bead where their bodies met. Nicky had one of his knees close to his chest, the stretch and burn in his thighs worth it when Sasha sank into him and he could hold him even closer.

“You’re okay?” Sasha asked.

Nicky nodded. “I’m okay, just—” Sasha moved inside him and Nicky took a sharp breath. “Yes, please, don’t be gentle. I want to feel it later. I want to feel it, so I know you’re here.” 

“I’m here,” Sasha promised. He shifted Nicky’s hips and Nicky didn’t try to keep quiet, because he had to feel this, he had to hear this, and know it was real. 

Another year, Nicky thought, another year he would have this.

*

Their stolen year featured: a Superleague championship for Dynamo Moscow, a silver medal at World Juniors (none for Sweden), a bronze medal at Worlds ( _none for Sweden!!!_ ), and in between the two: a dislocated shoulder for Sasha that took him out of the regular season for two months. 

“Why aren’t you happy, point leader?” Sasha asked, in Swedish, after a Dynamo game he had watched from the owners’ box while he was injured. 

“It’s shitty, playing while you’re watching from up in the box.” Sasha was in the team changing room, sitting in Nicky’s stall as though his own wasn’t across the way, as if Nicky didn’t need to actually sit the fuck down and tie his shoes so they could go home. “Oh, good, best season of my career, good thing Sasha’s not here to ruin it for me with _his_ scoring.”

Nicky zipped up his jeans and looked at Sasha, who was listening but looked far too thoughtful for just another night in the changing room. “What?” Nicky asked. 

“Nothing,” Sasha said. He added, in Russian, “I’m happy for you. You know that, right?”

Nicky pulled on a t-shirt, but the strange look was still on Sasha’s face. 

“Yeah,” Nicky said. “Of course I know that. Of course you’re happy for me. What, you think I’m going to go home with someone who’s _not_ impressed by one of Dynamo Moscow’s point leaders?”

“Okay, Nicky,” Sasha sighed. “Take me home already. Christ, you bring me here to this locker room like any ass in here is worth staring at when I’m _healthy_ , never mind when I’m so hurt. I’m _so_ hurt, Nicky.” 

“Make him hurt, _Nicky_ ,” someone teased, and Nicky felt himself turn bright, bright red. He half-assed muttered something back, but it only made the team laugh harder as he took Sasha’s hand and led him home. 

*

The following August, they took a quick trip to Washington so Sasha could sign his entry-level contract with the Capitals. They stayed for a few dinners and photo shoots, then returned to the summer palace outside Gävle for the last weeks of summer. 

In the palace one morning, Nicky had nearly sneaked out of the kitchen with a pair of oversized breakfast sandwiches for himself and Sasha, except then his mother entered the kitchen with a cup of tea. Kris, of course, wandered in after her.

“You’ve been back from Washington for a few days,” she said. “When are you returning home from Moscow?”

“Are you?” Kris interrupted. “Are you coming home, Nicky?”

Nicky looked between them both, then put down his sandwich plate and glanced at Kris. “Could you at least get me some wrap or a cover for this?”

Kris did so, while their mother cleared her throat and waited for an answer.

“I’m already signed for this next season with Dynamo,” Nicky said. “I’m staying in Moscow, even if Sasha isn’t there.”

“In the same house, I presume? And Misha doesn’t mind?”

“Of course Misha doesn’t mind, he isn’t—” Nicky bit his tongue and focused on putting a cover over the breakfast plate. He let himself wonder if he was coward enough to make a run for it, desperately hoping he could just go back to bed with Sasha and his family could forget he existed. 

“Why didn’t you play for Brynäs when you were looking for a team?” his mother asked. “They’re near here. You could have lived here and played for Brynäs.”

“Kris was in university at Lund, that was why I chose Malmö,” Nicky said. “You and Papa wouldn’t let me live alone, and Kris didn’t want to go to any university near here, so I went to Malmö. Malmö was a bad fit and now I’m with Dynamo.” 

“I’m not suggesting Malmö, I’m suggesting _here_.”

“Why are you suggesting it? It’s only one more season. I’m going to North America in the spring for the draft and then I’m going to Washington. That’s the plan.”

“Yes, but you went to Moscow for Sasha and now he’s no longer there. Come back home.”

“Mama’s trying to say that you should stay here for a year before you leave us forever,” Kris said, interrupting again. 

“I’m not leaving forever,” Nicky said. “I can’t, remember? The treaty says that we have to come here every summer, so I _can’t_ leave forever.”

“Oh, right, spending every summer of your life in a palace, what a horrible burden you have to bear,” Kris replied.

“Kristoffer,” their mother said sharply. She looked at Nicky, then said, “Think about Brynäs before you leave again for Moscow. Talk to Sasha about it, if you must.” 

“Think about what? I’m not breaking my contract to come here and live with you and Papa while I play hockey for a team that’s not mine, just to make you happy for a year.” Nicky bit his tongue again, but only for a moment. “Just to make myself miserable for a year, when I’ll already be miserable because Sasha’s across the ocean.” 

“Oh, good,” his mother said. “Your family makes you miserable. Good. Good to hear that, Nicklas. Finally, the most honest thing you’ve ever told us.” 

“ _You_ make me miserable,” Nicky snapped. “You all lie to me, tell me I don’t want what I want, I don’t care about people I care about—how am I supposed to live like that?”

“You’re seventeen and we’ve raised you in this immense life of privilege, Nicklas,” his mother said carefully. “You’re too old to hear from me that you are a prince and your life isn’t your own. I don’t know where you discovered the idea that, maybe, you could be exempt from that, but you cannot, you _will not_.” She waved her hand and that was it, conversation over. “But you’ve made your point. You signed a contract with another team, so you should honor it. I thought you would take this year to remember your home and who you belong to before you went to live even further away from us, but I was wrong. We will see you and Alexander at dinner.” 

The back of Nicky’s neck burned with something, some fierce defensive instinct at the way his mother had said _Alexander_ , like he—he was _Sasha_. He was so much more than a name and a title. She had to know how much that would hurt him. 

Kris stayed behind after their mother left. When Kris said nothing, Nicky looked at him. 

“What?” Nicky asked. “Don’t you have something to add? Mama’s never cared about Sasha, I know that now, but maybe you—”

“Nicky, shut up, honestly,” Kris said. “I don’t care. I was only here because Mama asked me. Papa wanted no part in talking to you about staying here for the season because you two don’t actually care about the family or the monarchy or literally fucking anything except what you want.”

Kris was gearing up for a fight, but Nicky had a pair of sandwiches to bring upstairs and Sasha to wake up for another day of swimming and ice time and avoiding people.

“You’re right,” Nicky said, and he left the kitchen. 

Nicky would be eighteen that November and he was still sleeping in the same bedroom suite of the summer palace that he had been sleeping in since he was an infant. The bed was as large as their bed in Moscow, a request he had made during his first year in Moscow because he and Sasha would officially share the same room the following summer. It was still the same room, though, with the same balcony, the same view, the same Sasha curled up under the sheets with his face hidden in as many pillows as he could manage. 

Nicky set the breakfast plate down on his bedside table and took off his shirt to slip into bed again. Sasha was mostly awake, judging from the way he reached out to grab Nicky’s hip and pull him close to press a kiss to Nicky’s shoulder. “You said you’d be quick.”

“I was. You’re not even awake yet.”

“I was awake when you left.” Sasha pulled away so he could sit up, stretching his arms over his head and yawning loudly before he looked at Nicky, still on his side where Sasha had left him. “You had coffee without me?”

“Shit, I forgot coffee,” Nicky said. “I’ll go back for it later.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll go, I have to—”

“It’s fine, you go use the bathroom, I’ll get coffee. I’m sure someone’s made some, I just didn’t get any.”

“Or we grab the plate and go back down—”

“Can we not?” Nicky asked. “Can we just. Can we stay here? Can we just stay here, and then go swim or something, or go into town, or—I’ll buy you coffee in town, okay? We never go into town.”

Sasha frowned at him and Nicky was ready to tell him. He was ready to tell him what had happened downstairs, ready for the tightness in his chest to go away so he could feel exhausted and heavy in his bones all day—that feeling wasn’t much better than the tightness, but it was better to feel worn down than scared with nowhere to run. 

Sasha brushed a thumb along Nicky’s cheek. “Okay, let’s shower and go to town. We never go into town while we’re here. Let’s have a nice breakfast there, like we’re adults or something.”

“Maybe we can go for a drive, too,” Nicky suggested. “We could take one of the boats to Limön. Let me call someone about the boat. We can have breakfast in town and spend the day on the island. If you want. It’s just an idea.”

“It’s a good idea,” Sasha said. “I’ll start the shower, you call your boat people, okay? I’ll wait for you.” 

“You better,” Nicky said. “You’ve waited for me this long, it’s just stupid to give up now.”

“I’m going to pretend you’re still talking about the boat, not whatever drove you away from your precious coffee.” Sasha leaned in and kissed him, then left for the bathroom. 

Nicky watched him go, then closed his eyes, breathed, and collected himself before picking up his phone.

*

Dynamo wasn’t the same without Sasha. More fucking obviously, it wasn’t the same powerhouse team without the half-dozen NHL players on the roster after they were exiled by the 2004-05 lockout. By the time World Juniors in fucking Vancouver came around, Nicky was ready to take a break from their fairly even cycle of losing every other game. 

Of course, who should latch onto Nicky at World Juniors but the point-machine from Magnitka, who was far too happy to see Nicky considering the last time they saw each other, Zhenya Malkin was crying into a personal sushi boat while Sasha consolation-hugged him in the private room of a restaurant in Moscow. Zhenya had done the classy drunk thing and asked them if they knew how terrible it was for a hockey team to fail in the first round of the playoffs. Classy, as though that hadn’t been exactly their situation every season they had played in the RSL (except this past season when Dynamo Moscow had actually won). 

“This is a better season for us,” Zhenya told Nicky, like it was a fucking secret or something.

“No shit,” Nicky said.

Zhenya frowned with his entire face. “You miss your prince.”

“I miss _winning_.”

“But also the future king of Russia gently plowing you like the first fields of—”

“That’s not even the right order of succession, never mind—”

“Come on, Your Swedeness, I promised our friend I would take care of you,” Zhenya announced, his arm around Nicky’s shoulders as they headed off somewhere to eat. 

They tried to talk about things other than hockey, but hockey kept coming up because hockey was everything. Also, it didn’t escape Nicky that during the weekend of the draft in 2004, they spent a _lot_ of time drinking with Zhenya in his overhuge Pittsburgh jersey and now a year and a half later, Sasha was playing for Washington and Zhenya was _not_ in Pittsburgh.

“Have you been back to America since the draft?” Nicky asked.

Zhenya waved off the question. “Last year was that lockout and a pretty bad season for us.”

“You came in third.”

“That’s _pretty bad_ considering we were first for points the year before and second overall. This year, back on track.”

“And next season?” Nicky asked. “Will you go to Pittsburgh next season?”

“Can’t think about next year yet,” Zhenya replied. “World Juniors now, Olympics with Sasha in February—are you coming to Turin, too? Sasha didn’t say.”

“Of course I’m not,” Nicky said. “But I’m on the roster for Worlds for the first time, so maybe I’ll actually play if one of the other centers dies or something.” 

Zhenya nodded and held up his glass for another toast. “Then we’ll all be together again at Worlds.” 

If nothing else, Nicky could toast to that.

*

Even with the Superleague expanding the playoffs format so that only the two lowest of the eighteen teams didn’t play (and more teams moved into the following rounds), Dynamo still didn’t make it past the first round. Nicky went out to drink with his team, then immediately went home and started to pack for spring in Washington. That was an effective strategy for a good twenty minutes, before the adrenaline crashed and the alcohol caught up and he fell into bed. 

Nicky woke up to something vibrating under his pillow. His sad fucking brain took far too long to realize it was his phone. He saw it was Sasha and cleared his throat before he answered. “Hey, what time is it?”

“Late. Not that late. I'm a little drunk. You sound fuzzy. Are _you_ drunk?”

“What? No? Yes. Still a little, maybe. Or sad. I can’t tell. Maybe both. Hey, we lost 3-1 and we’re out of the playoffs. Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? When are you coming?”

“When—I don’t know, when do you—”

“Soon as you can.”

“Are you okay?” Nicky lifted the phone away from his ear and saw it was a little after 8 AM, so it was midnight in Washington. “Did you have a game?”

“Yeah, and—just. Could you come and stay with me until the season’s over? Could you come? I can’t leave until our fucking season ends in like two fucking weeks.”

“Sasha, talk to me.” 

Nicky couldn’t decide whether he should sit up or hide under his sheets, so he did both, sitting up against the headboard with the sheets wrapped around him. His laptop was at the other end of the bed, where he slept when Sasha was there. He grabbed it and started to email the palace staff back in Sweden about travel arrangements to Washington. 

“Sasha,” Nicky repeated as he typed. “Tell me.”

“You won’t laugh, will you? Because I’m fucking miserable and fucking spoiled and I don’t—I don’t know what to do.” He sighed over the line and Nicky thought he’d break the left click on his laptop with how hard he pressed it, because that would help. “It’s—they asked me after tonight’s game if I knew how well I was doing so far, my first NHL year. Guess how good I am, Nicky? We’re ten games from the end of the season and I’m third, in the whole league, for goals. Third for points. Fourth in even goals, sixth in power play goals, first in shots—like sixty ahead in shots from the next guy, fucking _Jágr_ , okay? But guess where our team is. Just guess.”

Nicky didn’t have to guess.

“Last in our shitty division, _almost_ last in the whole East except for fucking Pittsburgh. We played fifteen games in March and won _four_. And we have to play ten more games and I just—I don’t know. I think, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you were here.” Sasha sighed again. “Sorry. We drank a little, too, and I just got home because I fell asleep in someone’s living room. Nicky, I hate this.” 

“I know,” Nicky said. “I was—I came home last night, still drunk, and started to pack before I fell asleep. So I’ll try to get on a plane soon, okay?”

“No, don’t,” Sasha said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I said that. We have one more game in DC, then we have four games all up and down the East Coast, so I won’t even see you for ten fucking days. April 19, okay? I’ll see you April 19.”

“Okay,” Nicky said. He added, quietly, “I hate this. Maybe we should have gone to university and been lazy princes here the rest of our lives. We would have been happy, wouldn’t we? If we just. Whatever. Lived like a regular royal family. Took photos with other people’s babies and actively denied colonialism.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sasha said. “Guess we’ll find out after we retire, because we’re in this now.” Nicky could hear Sasha take a breath before he spoke again. “Aren’t we? You can still withdraw from the draft. You have two months. If you did, we could live here for the rest of my contract, if you wanted to be together. I can’t leave. I mean, I _can_ leave, we probably have people to invent diplomatic crises all the time, they probably _can_ pull something that gets me called back to Russia, but I don’t want to leave. Does that make sense?”

Nicky crawled under his covers again held the phone to his ear. “It does. I’m still in this, even if it’s impossible. At least it’s impossible with you.”

“You sound tired. You should go back to sleep. Season’s over, you can do whatever you want.”

“And you haven’t slept yet,” Nicky said. “Go on, go find a couch or something. I’ll wait for you. We’ll talk each other back to sleep, how about that? I’ll tell you the very boring story of how Misha finally hired a full-time housekeeper here.”

“What? _Full_ -time? Someone’s finally taking care of you two, the laziest people on earth? Holy shit. How are you going to make that boring?”

“Well. Boring. Passive-aggressive. Same thing. It all started with Misha never loading the dishwasher, then never unloading the dishwasher, and then never eating at the house, and then never buying groceries when it was his turn—”

Sasha yawned right in Nicky’s ear and Nicky’s eyes felt heavy again, even if it was morning. “You tell the best-worst stories,” Sasha said. “Tell me how many days you went buying sandwiches from that cart by the practice arena before you and Misha sat down to talk.”

“Too many, Sasha.”

“You’re terrible.” Sasha yawned again. “We’ll have a housekeeper first thing, okay? We’ll hire someone before we even have a house. I don’t trust you with keeping us both alive. I’ve seen you eat Kalles straight from the tube on a hot summer day.”

“Oh my god,” Nicky laughed. “We were _disgusting_ as children.”

“I ate caviar from the jar, thank you.”

Nicky closed his eyes. “Sleep well, okay? I’ll see you soon. I’ll see you so soon.”

“Me too. You too. Whatever. Sleep nice.”

*

For Sasha, Nicky took a flight from Moscow to Newark, New Jersey, then a chartered plane from Newark to a small private airport outside Washington. Nicky peered out the windows and to his relief, it was empty except for ground crew. No embarrassing hockey reception, or royal reception, or fucking anything, just Sasha inside, probably waiting with IVs of soda plugged directly into one arm and coffee into the other. 

Nicky and his bag entered the tiny barely-an-airport and there was Sasha, sitting in one of a dozen seats by the gate, lost in a book because Nicky had forgotten what an unbelievable nerd he was when no one was looking. He rolled his suitcase closer and called out to him:

“Is that book any good?”

Sasha looked surprised to see the ghost he had summoned actually arrived. He left the book on the seat and pushed Nicky’s suitcase away, the better to throw his arms around Nicky and pick him up, same size or not. 

“Where are we staying?” Nicky asked. “With George, where you’ve been living? Should I get a hotel and you stay with me there?”

Sasha took Nicky’s suitcase and looked horrified for a moment. “Hotel, please. If they can hear one of my teammates snoring from the couch in the basement, they’re gonna hear _me_.” Sasha led him off in a rush, then went back for the abandoned book before heading out again. 

Sasha still had a detail in Washington, an annoyance they had lived with their whole lives until now, when it wasn’t such an annoyance because one of Sasha’s bodyguards could drive, one could call ahead to a hotel, and Nicky’s one guard could look calmly out the window. Sasha pulled Nicky’s legs over his lap and they both talked _scheduling_ , playing at adults so valiantly. 

“We have ten days here,” Nicky said with his hand in Sasha’s hair. “Then Worlds. Then a week, then I have the fucking combine in Toronto, then two weeks, then the draft in Vancouver, and then we’re fucking done.”

“Remember, you promised,” Sasha said. “I have to find you an exercise bike so you can practice not vomiting everywhere. And I’ll sit in front of you and eat popcorn until you’re sick.”

“I remember that,” Nicky said. “And I remember sitting on the couch, _away_ from you on the bike, just for that reason.”

“I’ll actually sit and cheer you on, because I’m good at moral support and you just like to laugh at me.”

Nicky nodded and rested his head against Sasha’s. “Yeah, that’s me. I always like laughing at you.”

*

The two of them were in the parking lot of an upscale restaurant, Sasha clutching Nicky’s hand before they went inside to meet the team for dinner—before Nicky met the team for the first time. 

“Some of the old guys left already because the season’s over, but the ones here tonight are good guys, really good. They always ask about you, always ask how you’re doing—we watched your World Juniors games, too. They can’t wait to meet you. And Syoma is here tonight.” Sasha hadn’t moved away from their car in the parking lot, instead standing with Nicky and talking a million miles a minute. “He came back a few days ago to sign another contract, so he’ll be here next season, too. You saw he barely played at home, so once he’s back here with us to suffer, we’ll be good. The older guys say he was really good for the team before he went back to Russia, so I believe them, I know he’s going to be good next season. Chris Clark, very nice, and not in that full of himself way, but very nice, trying to be everyone’s dad. Brooks and Greenie are very funny for different reasons. Brooks is always very calm and—also, Brooks is handsome. It’s terrible. He’s beautiful. He’s not _wow_ about how he’s beautiful, he’s just very handsome and okay about it. Okay, maybe he’s a little cocky about how good-looking he is, but he’s not shallow about it or anything. He and Greenie came up from the Hershey team and I hope they stay because they’re the only fun guys and they’re not even that fun. Also Brooks is very healthy and he likes to sit next to me and talk to me about how bad soda is while I’m drinking soda and then I drink _another_ soda and he reminds me a lot of Kris, if Kris was beautiful. Sorry. He’s not. He likes me a lot more than Kris, though, so that's why I like Brooks. Not that I don't like your brother! It’s complicated! You know how complicated it is.”

Nicky was only half-listening to the actual words Sasha was saying because he could count on one hand the number of times Sasha had ever shown himself to be this nervous in the course of their whole entire lives. Between his tight grip on Nicky’s hand, his sweaty palm, and his babbling, it was a whole new side of Sasha.

It also reminded Nicky of that conversation they had had a few weeks earlier, after their playoffs failure, when Sasha said that maybe he didn’t want to play for Washington after all. It was a relief for Nicky to see it was a little bit completely bullshit. If Sasha was really done with his team, done with Washington, he wouldn’t be pressing his sweaty hand into Nicky’s like this. He knew what Sasha was like when he didn’t care, and this wasn’t that. 

“So Brooks is handsome?” Nicky asked.

“No, Nicky, don’t make fun of me,” Sasha whined. 

“Is he older than you? How much older?”

“He’s not, not older at all, practically. Nicky, don’t tease me.” 

Nicky grinned and kissed Sasha, just a quick press of lips that got Sasha’s hands on Nicky’s hips anyway. “Come on, we have to go inside.”

“Or we leave them all here and go back to the hotel and we’ll try it again in five or six years, maybe.”

“The sooner we go inside, the sooner we can leave again.”

Sasha sighed and kissed Nicky again. “Okay, that’s good math. I still don’t like the part where maybe you’ll hate our future guys, or maybe they won’t think you’re the best person in the whole entire world, but if you say we can leave early, then we can go and do this.” 

“You like them, so I’ll like them,” Nicky said.

“I like you, so they’ll like you,” Sasha agreed. 

Once they wound their way through the restaurant, they found their private room in the back was already roaring with a party, the guys letting out another roar as Sasha led Nicky inside. 

“Do we like—this isn’t like an Official Team Thing,” Greenie (“the one with the hair, you’ll see what I mean”) said after a moment. “Should we like, get up and bow?”

“Yes,” Nicky said seriously. “Only you. Let the others see how it’s done.”

Nicky made sure to hold eye contact for as long as possible until the guys at Greenie’s table burst out laughing and ruined his already messy hair. “No, dudes, no, this is fucked up, he’s not supposed to be funny, too,” Greenie laughed. 

“I told you, Mikey, he’s funny _and_ he’s mean,” Sasha said. “You’ll be good on your toes with him, promise.” 

“So unfair,” he whined. “ _And_ he’s cute, like what the _fuck_ , Ovi.”

“He’s _handsome_ ,” Sasha corrected.

“Our whole life is a lie,” Nicky said. “I can’t be cute now, apparently.”

There were two available seats on one side of the long table that filled the room, just to make sure Nicky was tightly pressed on all sides by Sasha and by all these strangers. “You _can_ sit on my other side, _away from Greenie_ ,” Sasha said. He made like he was pushing Nicky to the seat further from Mike, but he let Nicky sit before he shoved Nicky’s chair in Greenie’s direction. They took their seats and Sasha searched for Nicky’s hand, catching his eyes and squeezing tight before the introductions and conversations started up again. 

*

A few weeks later, Nicky and Sasha were in Latvia for Worlds. Riga was less than a two-hour flight from Moscow, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected that Sasha’s parents would attend the tournament that year. There was usually a better chance of seeing them travel for Sasha’s tournaments during the warm weather months, which was why Nicky never saw them during the winter World Juniors tournaments. 

Sasha’s parents, the King and Queen of Russia, were… interesting. They were a pair of no-nonsense people, something Sasha and Misha learned directly from them. They adored their sons—didn’t just love them, but openly adored them, something that after all these years still made Nicky a bit uncomfortable to watch for no reason except that he couldn’t imagine his own family so gentle with each other.

For all that they had known Nicky since birth, they didn’t necessarily adore _him_. He had been Sasha’s closest friend throughout their whole lives, but he couldn’t blame them for being a little wary of him, when he and his family took Sasha away from them every summer and not once reciprocated the offer. Still, now that Nicky had lived in Russia for two seasons and saw Sasha’s parents somewhat regularly, they had finally begun to warm up to him, and they ramped up the teasing as if to catch up for years of polite, political tolerance. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” Sasha’s mother asked. 

Nicky snapped out of his thoughts and stared at the end of the table, where Misha was trying not to laugh and Sasha’s mother looked like she was about to move her seat next to him and force feed him. 

“Nicklas, how are you both playing professional men’s hockey, but Sasha has put on at least fifteen pounds of muscle and I can still lift you with one hand?” she added. 

“Nicky hates arm days,” Sasha told his mother. “He thinks a big chest and arms will make his head look small.”

Nicky stared across the table at this _betrayal_ and asked, in Swedish, “Do you want to tell them how often I jerk off, too, or were you saving that for dessert?”

In Swedish, Sasha replied, “They understand you, and if they didn’t know the Swedish for _jerking off_ before tonight, they know it now.” 

Nicky turned red enough to blend in with the royal room accents and shoved his mouth full of food as Sasha’s father clapped him on the shoulder and laughed at him. 

“But he does leg days,” Sasha added to his mother. “Nicky, go, show Mama your legs.”

“I’m _eating_ ,” Misha said. “Like it wasn’t enough living with you two, the show follows me here?”

“You two,” Sasha’s mother demanded, looking to Misha and Nicky. “How was living without Sasha? You’re both still alive, so I want to know how.” 

“It was fine, we got along,” Nicky said. “We hired a housekeeper.”

“Why you didn’t have one to begin with is beyond me, but go on,” Sasha’s mother said. 

“We wanted to be independent,” Misha protested, because he was close enough in age to Sasha and Nicky that it was a Real Excuse, at some point, before their willpower faded away into the purest laziness. 

“And Misha, you’ll live in the Moscow house when Nicklas leaves in the fall?” Sasha’s mother asked. “Nicklas, when do you sign your contract?”

“Why don’t we call him Kolya?” Sasha wondered aloud. “It’s the nickname for Nikolai, but we never use it for Nicky.” 

Sasha seemed surprised that the blatantly obvious topic change actually worked.

“Because when you were very young and we told you that you could call him _Kolya_ , you thought we were saying _koala_ and then you forgot about it,” Sasha’s father said. 

“That sounds like bullshit,” Sasha said. “They don’t sound the same in Russian.”

“We probably said it in English. We were trying to shove three or four languages into your tiny baby brain, Sasha, and all the _Sesame Street_ we could get on cable, so of course you forgot about your bear, Kolya Koala,” Sasha’s father replied. 

“WHAT,” Sasha said, looking across the table at Nicky, wide-eyed with the panic of repressed childhood memories. “I had a Nicky Koala?”

Sasha’s mother sighed and clapped her hands together, as though she was taking a moment to pray. “So when we signed the treaty, you were three or four, Sasha, and Nicklas was barely a year old, and that was how you confused Kolya and koala. We thought it would be adorable if we told the media about the mixup in nicknames and you brought baby Nicky a toy koala bear. And we did, we got a koala bear almost as big as you, _absolutely_ bigger than the baby, and flew with it all the way to Gävle—”

“I remember that,” Misha interrupted. “Seryozha strapped the bear into a seat so no one would sit next to him, and he yelled at anyone who tried to move the bear.” 

There was a moment for Seryozha, and then Sasha’s mother smiled and continued. “So we arrived in Gävle, the first summer we would visit with Nicky and his family, and Sasha had _one job_ , he had _one job_ and it was to walk with this bear and give it to baby Nicky and maybe kiss him on the head if he felt like being not a terror that day.”

“It was a little both,” Sasha’s father added. 

“Sasha was in his little suit, and baby Nicky was sitting on the rug in that library in front of all the cameras, and Sasha came over, Seryozha helping him carry this giant bear. Sasha put the bear next to Nicky, sat next to Nicky, smiled for the cameras, and then took the bear back and made Nicky cry.”

Nicky looked across the table; Sasha was totally enchanted by the story. He had to tap his fingers to get Sasha’s attention. “I am so angry that my family never told me this story. Can you believe we’ve lived our entire lives not knowing about Kolya Koala?”

“No, of course not, we never told you because it was such a fuss at the time,” Sasha’s mother scoffed. “The nationalist papers in Sweden were saying even Russian children couldn’t be trusted to give gifts unselfishly, and our papers here that hated the treaty thought it was a stupid waste of time. They claimed that even Sasha, _who was three_ , clearly thought so, too, and what good leadership skills he already had, to know when to take something back even when propriety insisted, blah blah blah.” Sasha’s mother waved her hand. “Anyway, you’re both old enough now, so you can know about Kolya Koala.”

“I never had a koala, though,” Nicky said.

“Neither did I,” said Sasha. 

“No, of course not,” Sasha’s father laughed. “We tried to take it from Sasha and insist he give it back to you, but he threw a fit, so we let him keep it until we flew back to Moscow, and _then_ we donated it, because he hadn’t earned it.”

“Oh my god,” Sasha said. “My poor Kolya Koala.”

“You had him a total of eight hours, Sasha, _max_ ,” Misha said. 

“Eight hours with an adorable koala named for my future husband!” Sasha said. “The outrage. I can’t believe it. See if I don’t let Sweden annex us to make up for the crimes against koalas and—and _innocence_.” 

“Congratulations,” Misha said. “This is the stupidest conversation we’ve ever had, as a family.” 

“Misha,” Sasha’s mother teased. “It was adorable, and Sasha learned to share, eventually.”

“Share with Nicky, if no one else,” Misha said. “He didn’t even let me borrow a pair of socks when we lived together.”

“Oh, and if I look in _your_ sock drawers, they’ll be brother-appropriate, will they?” Sasha asked.

“Not again, please,” Nicky said into a glass of wine. 

“I didn’t even think of that,” Misha muttered. “Oh, god. Mama, you had me living in a den of _sin_ , for _years_ , with these two.”

“You were supposed to keep the sin out, idiot. Why do you think you were there?”

“I was supposed to turn down a house in downtown Moscow?” 

“Everything has its price, Misha, you should know that by now.” Sasha’s mother cleared her throat and folded her hands. “Speaking of price: when do you two plan to be married?”

Sasha choked on his food and Nicky on his drink. They recovered and both of them brought a napkin or glass to their mouths, staring at each other in hopes that one of them had the better answer and could, maybe, share the answer telepathically so they were both on the same page.

That didn’t happen, so Nicky tilted his head and tried to will Sasha to remember that they were _his_ parents. 

Sasha returned his napkin to his lap and glared at Nicky—message received.

“We haven’t discussed a date yet,” Sasha said. “And it’s not like we need to be married to live in the United States. Oh, and we have every kind of visa we could possibly need, so why do we need to rush into it?”

Nicky said nothing, because he had nothing to say. 

Sasha’s mother looked at her son, then at her husband. “Your son’s a romantic, just like you.”

“Maybe Koala is the romantic one,” Sasha’s father suggested and, oh, great, _that_ was a thing now.

“I’m the romantic one,” Sasha protested. “That’s why I—we just haven’t talked about it. It’s not like we need to be married soon because one of us is pregnant or we’re about to declare war on someone. Not that _those_ are good reasons, either! We just haven’t discussed it!”

Nicky whispered across the table, “Are we asleep? Is this a nightmare? Why are you still _talking_?”

“I was putting it on the table, as the Americans say,” Sasha’s mother said calmly. “Just to remind you that you’re twenty and eighteen and that, while there isn’t any particular age noted on your marriage treaty, that doesn’t mean you can just live in Washington like a couple of bachelors and _never_ get married.”

“Mama, they forgot they had to live like bachelors at some point in their lives,” Misha said. “They’ve been married since they were teenagers. One of them still is a teenager, _Nicklas_.” 

For someone who had lived his entire life in the public eye, Nicky felt strangely under the microscope at this dinner table, where his entire life was being dissected by people outside of himself and Sasha. Then again, at least it wasn’t _his_ family. He would have probably stormed off already, if this discussion was happening with his family.

Shit, he would have to have this discussion with _his family_. 

“We don’t live like bachelors,” Nicky said, hoping his voice and his Russian were steady. “We—yes, we go out sometimes and party and drink, but we always end up together, and the same will probably happen in Washington, so. We’re not bachelors. We’re going to live together like we did in Moscow. We just—we won’t have the big ceremony yet.”

Sasha’s mother nodded, but kept her careful eye on Nicky for a moment longer. “And you both promise you won’t elope in secret in Washington without us?”

“If we don’t make the playoffs next season, we’ll start World War 3 by eloping at the Washington City Hall,” Sasha promised.

“All right, let’s talk about something else, before Nicky does something drastic like cough impolitely,” Sasha’s mother said. “Who is going to win the Stanley Cup this season?”

“A shitty team that’s not ours,” Sasha sighed. “Second round for the Eastern Conference now is North Carolina and New Jersey, and Ottawa and Buffalo.”

“Who? _Who_? Who are any of these teams?”

“You tell me, Mama, I don’t know,” Sasha said. 

“No, _you_ tell me, I need to take insider info to my hockey club when we watch the games.”

“Since when do you watch the Stanley Cup playoffs?” Sasha asked.

“Since my youngest son is a professional hockey player in the NHL,” she snapped back at him. “And when you wanted to play for the California shark team when you were little.”

“Oh my god, Mama, they’re in San Jose.” 

“Does New Jersey still have that handsome goalie? Brodeur, Martin Brodeur, Papa, do you remember him? Sasha, why doesn’t your team sign him? Have they thought of getting someone good like him?”

Sasha put his head down on the table and groaned in pure agony. “It’s on the list, Mama. First we have to sign Nicky and then we can think about stealing Martin Brodeur, which is a completely real thing we can do.”

Sasha’s mother waved him off again, then turned her attention to Nicky. “Go to Washington and get yourselves a pair of Stanley Cup rings before we find you something hideous from our jewelry collections in the palace.”

“Mama,” Sasha whined. “Could we save this for when we’re thirty?”

Sasha’s father looked deeply concerned. “Why wouldn’t you marry him before you’re thirty? What happens when you’re thirty? Are you two having problems?”

“What? No!” Sasha pulled out his phone and said, “Oh, look, the team wants to have an emergency meeting and Nicky has to come, too, for reasons, so we have to go.”

“Alexander, don’t you dare,” his mother warned. 

Nicky burst out laughing. “I don’t think I’ve _ever_ heard anyone call you that.”

“They call me Alex in Washington,” Sasha said. “Well, you saw at that dinner with the team. I’m Alex and Ovi, because some of the guys who were there when Syoma—Alex Semin—were there called _him_ Sasha and since he’s coming back, he’s still Sasha and I’m Ovi.”

“Ovi for the House of Ovechkin? That’s cute,” Nicky said. “An angry little goal-scoring sheep.”

“I hope they give you an awful nickname, too,” Sasha said.

“What, like koala?” Nicky asked.

“No, they can’t have koala, not now that I know about it. Koala is mine,” Sasha said. “I’ll think of something.”

“Don’t torture your husband,” Misha scolded. “You’re playing against each other at some point in this Worlds shitshow, aren’t you? I’ve seen how he plays for Dynamo; he and his tiny arms can still fucking murder you.”

“Papa, we should see Sweden’s games more often,” Sasha’s mother noted. “Now that I know our little koala is so exciting on the ice.”

“I’ve been telling you that for years!” Sasha protested. “Just because Misha says it, it must be true?”

“Misha’s objective,” Sasha’s father said. “You always talk that way about Nicklas, no matter what he does.”

Sasha sat back in his seat and sulked at his parents. “Stop telling my boyfriend I like him, it’s so embarrassing.” 

“ _You’re_ embarrassing,” Nicky said, warm all over from the talk, the family, the wine, Sasha’s pout across the table that he didn’t mean at all. 

*

In May 2006, the Swedish hockey team won gold at Worlds, a perfect and history-making complement to their gold at the Winter Olympics in Turin a few months earlier. Nicky played in four of the nine games without scoring a single point (or earning a single penalty minute). Next year, Sasha said, he’d have a gold from Worlds, too, and they could hang them side-by-side in their house in Washington. There was a photo of Nicky in head-to-toe Tre Kronor gear, a gold medal around his neck. He was clutching Sasha’s arms, the two of them yelling at each other and looking impossibly young. 

In June, George McPhee, the Capitals’ manager and Sasha’s host in Washington, brought Sasha on stage at the 2006 draft. It was supposed to be a surprise, but Sasha seemed physically incapable of keeping a secret from Nicky, especially one that required him to maybe embarrass them in public like this did. Sasha laughed at him from the podium before saying the words, _The Washington Capitals are happy to select Nicklas Backstrom_ , and then he let the applause drown out his voice. Nicky couldn’t stop his neck and his ears and his cheeks from turning bright red before he hugged Kris and his father and Misha. Sasha was waiting on stage with the owners and managers and Nicky’s very own ugly black and blue jersey, and an ugly black and blue cap, and kisses for both his cheeks before the endless handshake line, and the interviews, and everything they had to do now as Washington Capitals.

In July, Nicky’s grandmother, the Queen of Sweden, was rushed to the hospital. The royal photographer released a photo of Nicky sitting in a plastic hospital chair, hands folded in his lap, head bowed, with Sasha’s hand resting in his hair. They were wearing suits, like they had come directly from their vacation on the Gävle estate to the hospital dressed like that, like Nicky had worn pants past his knees _at all_ since his draft suit two weeks earlier. There were discussions about their hired ghouls quietly taking the coronation regalia off display, in case his grandmother and her weak heart couldn’t continue. The newspapers criticized the Russian prince present there with the royal family. They hated Nicky’s “effeminate” hair, and they hated Sasha’s hand on his head because it was a “proprietary gesture” highly inappropriate for any man to use on a member of the royal family, especially their young, vulnerable prince in a moment of grief. It was nothing they hadn’t read before.

In August, Nicky signed a one-year contract with Brynäs, Gävle’s professional hockey club. There was only one camera in the room and Sasha was off to the side. He refused to be in any of the photos; these were just for posterity, not some cute occasion. Sasha was only there to take Nicky’s hand and lead him back to the car. Back at the palace, they covered each other in sunblock and Nicky left Sasha to nap under an umbrella; Nicky climbed on a pool float and cracked open a bottle of excellent vodka that stayed in his hand until it slipped into the water. 

In September, Nicky sat in the front row of Storkyrkan at his mother’s coronation, Kris and his new fiancée and his father to his right, Sasha and Sasha’s family to his left. Nicky and Sasha sat up straight and looked very serious and didn’t hold hands but it was still (allegedly) an insult that the Russians were in the front row as though they belonged there, and an even greater insult that Sasha left for training camp in Washington two days after the coronation, a clear renege (according to some) on the implicit promise made by sitting with Prince Nicklas. 

“I’ll try to visit during the All-Star break,” Sasha said at the airport before he left for Washington. Sasha was doing his very, very best to either absorb Nicky into his chest through the sheer power of a hug, or leave Nicky with a little more bruising to remember him by. Nicky didn’t mind; he was holding Sasha just as tightly, because this wasn’t the way the summer was supposed to go. This was supposed to be their year. Every time Nicky thought that was it, they were set, they were rock solid and ready to live their lives, something fucking else happened. Nicky clutched at Sasha’s shoulders and hid his face against Sasha, because this was how it was always going to be: every time it seemed that the life they were living was real, more than a childish fancy they had spent summers thinking about and planning, something fucking else came along and sent them scrambling to be together, _stay_ together.

“Like you won’t be an All-Star again,” Nicky replied. 

“Maybe I’m boring to them now,” Sasha said.

“Sure, you and your Calder, so boring. Every time I think of you, my first thought is _boring_ ,” Nicky said. “Our playoffs are over before yours even start, so I’ll see you for your playoffs.”

“And if we don’t—”

“Why would you say that before you’ve even stepped on the fucking _plane_ , Sasha.”

“—if we don’t make it to the playoffs, we’ll take a vacation,” Sasha said. “Not just Gävle for the summer. We’ll go to a real beach and I’ll let you convince me again that sunblock is real.”

Nicky huffed a little laugh. “My wildest dreams, how did you ever find me out?”

“One more year,” Sasha promised. “One more year and we can live our life.”

Nicky nodded and pressed his forehead to Sasha’s. “One more year.”


	6. Chapter 6

**EVER AFTER**

It was 2011 and they had only been in Gävle for a week of their summer when a phone call from Russia dragged Sasha out of bed and down to the kitchen for some coffee.

Sasha returned to his and Nicky’s room with coffee for both of them and found that, as usual, Nicky had managed to creep into Sasha’s side of the bed without waking up. Sasha sipped his coffee, stared at the broad expanse of Nicky’s bare back for a moment, then nudged Nicky with his foot.

“What?” Nicky asked, without moving.

“Move, I have coffee, and we have plans next week.”

Nicky shifted onto his back and moved an inch over to his side of the bed. “No we don’t.”

“We do, we have a wedding in Russia.”

“Who? Everyone we know in Moscow is already married.”

“Not Moscow, Chelyabinsk.”

“Who the fuck do we know in Chelyabinsk?”

“Zhenya Kuznetsov. He’s getting married and on a total whim he called and invited us to the wedding. Some of our Dynamo guys are going so he thought he’d ask us, too.” Sasha looked into his coffee and took a sip before he set his mug down next to Nicky’s and said the next part. “Should only take us a week or so.”

He looked to his side at Nicky, who was now _wide_ awake and staring at Sasha. 

“A week?” Nicky asked. “He’s going to spend _a week_ getting married?”

“Yeah, why not? Should be fun.”

“Yes. _For him_.”

“He’s a nice kid and he has no plans to come over to Washington anytime soon, so I think maybe if we go and be nice to him, show him how fun and welcoming we are—”

“He’s getting _married_?” Nicky asked. “He was drafted last year, he’s just a baby.”

“We’re getting old,” Sasha said. “You just haven’t noticed because you’ve always been old.”

Nicky stretched out under the covers and settled onto his side, ready to sleep more. “Okay, let’s go. Let’s go watch this child be married in fucking Chelyabinsk.”

“The ceremony’s at the arena you love so much,” Sasha said. 

“That’s nice—wait, the _arena_? _Traktor_ ’s arena? Oh my god. Don’t get any ideas.”

“You love hockey.”

“I want catering.” 

“You think they can’t do that at the Verizon Center?”

“Oh, no, I’m asleep again, look at that.” 

Sasha had known Nicky a long time. Knowing Nicky was as much a part of him as having a head; he was so completely a part of life as Sasha knew it that it took a _lot_ to bring him out of their life and make him realize just what a fucking absurdity and wonder Nicky was in his life.

Or, it took stepping into Traktor Arena, where they had played maybe a dozen games together as teenagers, and seeing the arena decorated in red and white balloons and streamers and flowers. It took stepping inside and having Traktor’s polar bear mascot run up to them and play shy for a moment before hugging Sasha to death.

Sasha laughed and let the mascot go with a quick pat on its nose. He looked over at Nicky, who was taking pictures on his phone and laughing at him from not enough feet away to spare him from a hug. 

“Little prince is here, too,” Sasha said. “He missed you so much, we’ve been away for so long.”

“Oh no, no no,” Nicky laughed, but he didn’t actually stop the mascot from hugging him and picking him up, doing his best polar bear growl of _LITTLE PRINCE, LITTLE PRINCE_ before he sent Nicky and Sasha off on their way. 

Kuzya and Stasya arrived respectably late to the arena, walking the red and gold carpet alongside the rink to the little area set up for the civil ceremony. Sasha and Nicky hung back, behind the family and journalists, casually leaning against each other as they watched.

“He needs a haircut,” Nicky whispered. 

“So do you,” Sasha said.

“I was about to say, he needs a haircut _or_ he needs to commit to letting his hair get longer. His hair looks like—what's that hairstyle called? Like in that photo of Jágr and Lemieux with the cup?”

Sasha snorted and tried to cover it with a cough, turning his face away from the ceremony for a moment. The snort turned into a giggle and Nicky elbowed him to stop.

“You asshole, you started this,” Sasha hissed. 

“I was just making an observation,” Nicky said innocently. 

The ceremony was over and their young Kuzya was laughing as he kissed his wife and signed their license and kissed her again. 

“He’s seven years younger than me,” Sasha whispered. “Did I look young like that seven years ago?”

“You had a better haircut.”

“Only because I didn’t cut my hair, a plus in the House of Backstrom Guide to Style.” 

“You had these cheekbones I could see from across the arena in Halifax, when you played at World Juniors for the first time. Kris told me I was embarrassing myself because I kept pointing you out to him and telling him how handsome you were.”

Sasha tugged at Nicky’s elbow so they could face each other. “You never told me that.”

Nicky focused his gaze at the makeshift altar. “I was embarrassing enough around you back then, I didn’t need to make it worse for myself.”

“Oh, I _know_. You could have told me you thought I was cute, and then where would we be?”

Nicky smiled, though he still wasn’t looking at Sasha. “Right here. Like you could ever let me go.” 

“Too much paperwork,” Sasha agreed. He sighed, an exaggerated, long-suffering kind of thing, as he put his arm around Nicky’s waist. “Might as well stick with each other now. If you thought it was difficult finding another husband at twelve, I can’t imagine what the market is like at twenty-three.” 

Now it was Nicky’s turn to laugh and disguise it as a cough, before he looked at Sasha again. He touched the edge of Sasha’s jaw, pulling his attention away from the altar. 

“When we get married,” Nicky began, quiet and deeply serious, “I want Slapshot at our wedding.”

Sasha nodded and pressed a kiss to his hair. 

*

It took Nicky and Sasha a year to move into their new house. 

Four years earlier, Nicky had bought the blue house out of pure spite his second week in Washington. He did it because he had money and he hated living with strangers and he wanted to fuck Sasha in the privacy of their own fucking home because he had become used to that in Moscow and it was deeply unpleasant to give up that privilege for two fucking years. 

(Sasha had lived two seasons in the GM’s basement without complaint and had somehow _accepted_ that they would sneak around while Nicky lived the requisite season with someone on the team before they moved in together. 

(No, Sasha _liked_ to say he was “without complaint,” but there was definitely some fucking complaining when Sasha realized he could hear the upstairs commotion of his host family with perfect clarity through the central air vents. Logically, that sound would go both ways, like when they were trying to have phone/Skype sex with eight hours’ of time zones between them.) 

Their new house had no name; it had a stone exterior, a white interior, a library, some land, trees everywhere, a long gated driveway, and it had no fucking name. The blue house was catchy, the Gävle palace was mildly inaccurate (it was in the remote area just outside Gävle), the Moscow palace was mostly a museum, the Moscow house was now Misha’s house, the Lund house had been sold back to the city, and their new house, _their house_ , had no name.

Just as the most frustrating thing in Nicky’s life was whether they would successfully close on the house and what they would actually _call_ this place where they would live—just as Nicky’s problems seemed tiny and petty, someone elbowed him in the face, knocked his head into the glass, and concussed the fucking shit out of him for the next three months. 

During Nicky’s recovery they were technically moved into the house, but Sasha had unpacked only what they absolutely needed because Nicky wanted to decorate and that required his brain focusing on things for more than a few seconds before he wanted to vomit. This lasted until April, when time and a specialist in Sweden managed to get Nicky back on track—just in time to get into the playoffs, lose in the playoffs, and head back to Helsinki and Stockholm to lose to Russia and come in sixth place at Worlds.

(Sasha now had _two_ Worlds gold medals to hang next to Nicky’s one and, yes, they would display them proudly somewhere in the new house, which still had no name, and no actual inhabitants because they were spending the summer in Gävle.)

The new house still had no name in September, when they got the word from their agents that there would be another lockout. They moved back into Misha’s house in Moscow because Sasha was adamant about not living in the Moscow palace where he had grown up. Misha’s security detail _obviously_ let Sasha and Nicky and their giant suitcases into the house while Misha was still out of the city on vacation—they were _family_ , why wouldn’t they come stay with Misha for a month or four or five?

(For all that some of Moscow’s nationalist papers hated Nicky, the crowds at Dynamo’s arena seemed to still love him. Fans brought him a cake for his birthday and other gifts, like t-shirts joking about their never-scheduled wedding, mock romance novels with them on the covers, and a Nicky-sized koala that Dynamo kept in the lobby of the club. The koala even wore a jersey with Nicky’s number, and a little red heart sewn into its hand with OVIE stitched on it.

(Apparently, Russia no longer gave a shit about the great koala controversy of the late 1980s. The photos of Nicky sitting on the bear’s lap never made it onto anyone’s Instagram.)

In February, when the lockout was over and they had been back in Washington for two weeks, Sasha dragged most of the team out to the new house to help them unpack and finally decorate. Greenie the perpetually injured sat on a couch and helped Nicky direct where everything should go. Sasha grilled close to an entire fucking cow on their new deck because a 60 degree Saturday in February obviously called for their first barbecue in the new house. 

(A barbecue. In February. Sasha in sweats and sandals. _That_ made it onto Instagram.)

Sasha chose for their impromptu housewarming the night before they played the visiting Pens, so Nicky was only about 35% surprised when Zhenya Malkin crashed their housewarming after most of the team had left for the night. 

(Holtby had more than one beer for the first time since his son was born, so he was the first of the team to pass out in one of their guest bedrooms.) 

The actual surprise was that he had brought Sid, and only Sid, and that Sid had a beer and two cheeseburgers grilled by Prince Alexander of the House of Ovechkin’s own fucking hand in their own fucking house on their own fucking grill. _That_ surprised Nicky—not because of their great manufactured rivalry, but because he was pretty sure Sid enjoyed very healthy habits like performing ultrasounds to measure his own body fat and only smiling when he had tripped someone and gotten away with it. 

“You really speak Russian?” Sid asked Nicky.

“Yeah.”

“Say something in Russian.”

“Something,” Nicky said, in Russian.

“He’s much funnier in Russian,” Zhenya told Sid. “You’re missing out on so much.”

Sid looked at Zhenya for a very long time, then decided he was joking. 

Sasha texted Nicky from the armchair opposite him. 

 

SASHA: ZHENYA HAS WORST TASTE IN MEN. THE WORST. 

I WANT TO MAKE HIM A DUKE AND FIND HIM SOMEONE BETTER.

 

Nicky snorted, then turned to the conversation for a brief moment before his phone buzzed, again:

 

SASHA: SOMEONE HAS TO RUN MAGNITKA, RIGHT? IT CAN BE ZHENYA. 

I’LL MAKE HIM A PROVOST. NO ONE KNOWS THAT’S FAKE. 

 

“Sasha is texting me, so please talk to him before he gets more distracted,” Nicky said. 

“Nicky speaks beautiful Russian,” Sasha assured them as he put his phone away. “Sometimes he makes little Swedish sounds with Russian vowels and it sounds _adorable_ , like trying to whistle through a fish.”

“What the fuck are you even saying?” Sid asked. 

“Shut up, you have no poetry in your soul,” Sasha scoffed. 

“Now that you say it,” Zhenya said. “Yeah. Whistling through a fish. _Very_ accurate.”

“I’ve known Nicky my whole life,” Sasha said. Apparently that was his linguistics degree settled right there.

“Can we talk about literally anything else?” Nicky asked. 

“Oh! What are we going to call the house?” Sasha asked Zhenya. “It has no name.”

“...it’s not just _home_?” Sid asked.

“He’s home,” Sasha said, motioning to Nicky. “House is just a house, and white house is already taken.”

Nicky, on his fourth or fifth beer of their very long day, looked down at their new hardwood floors and the rug under their coffee table and smiled, a little, because that—it came so easy to Sasha. To know who and what people were to him, and never be shaken from that. One day he’d find out how Sasha lived with that kind of confidence, and if it was something Nicky could learn. 

“I need another beer,” Sid announced as he left the couch. “Geno? You want one?”

“Your host wants one, you animal,” Sasha called out. 

“I’m grabbing another burger from the fridge,” Sid yelled back. “And I’m putting good cheese on it. I can’t believe you fed me Kraft.”

“You brought a monster into my house and I’ll never forgive you,” Sasha said to Zhenya. “We’re fighting again.”

“But he’s cute,” Zhenya said in Russian. “He fits in my pocket and he laughs at all my jokes. What’s not to love?”

“Everything else,” Nicky replied.

Zhenya burst out laughing and called out, “SID! YOU MISSED ANOTHER BACKY JOKE!”

Nicky looked at Sasha across the way and said, in Swedish, “Our friends are terrible.”

“Finally, you noticed,” Sasha replied. 

Sid walked out with a burger in one hand and a tube in the other. “Is this really caviar? In a _tube_? Can I try it? Is it good?”

Sasha lit up. “I fucking dare you.”

Of course Sidney Crosby instantly loved the caviar from the tube spread over a cold cheeseburger; by the time he saw the sodium content on the nutritional information, the rest of them were already laughing hysterically and it was too late, his body was ruined forever. 

Nicky finished his beer and looked around the house. Their house. As far as names went, that might be simple enough to work. 

*

It was 2015: the Capitals had just won the Winter Classic, and Sasha and Nicky’s house was full of lovable freeloaders.

Kuzya had had a fucking time of it—last spring when Traktor exited the playoffs, he left Chelyabinsk, signed a contract with Washington, and immediately played 20 games for Washington before returning to Russia to pack up his life with Stasya. After some light house hunting when the season started, he and Stasya were waiting for the okay to move into their new house; in the meantime, they stayed with Sasha and Nicky. 

The three other bedrooms in the house were filled by the rotating lineup of Tom-Mike-Andre, who were brought up from Hershey often enough that an apartment in the area _made sense_ , yet they couldn’t bring themselves to commit to a place when they were living out of their bags week-to-week. Nicky invited Andre to stay in one of the spare rooms, and Tom and Mike just happened to never leave his side. Sasha didn’t see a problem; better to keep them in a house _they_ stocked with food rather than letting the Tom-Mike-Andre collective go on another trip to Costco without a shopping list or six neurons between them. 

None of that explained how the seven of them, plus Greenie and Carly, ended up watching _The Bachelor_ every week, with selective commentary and shushing from Mike and Tom. 

“It’s good for Andre’s vocabulary,” Mike said, after Nicky asked _why_ , exactly, the boys liked this show so much. (Nicky asked this every week, and he got a different answer every week.)

Andre was sitting on the floor, his back to the couch Nicky and Sasha were sharing. He looked up at Nicky with wide, wide eyes and said, “Nicky, can I steal you away?”

Maybe it was the total surprise of the moment, or Andre’s hopeful eyes that he had mastered one new English idiom, but Nicky laughed so hard he cried, and laughed until Greenie gently threw a couple of pillows at him because the show’s dialogue was notoriously mumbly and hard to follow, even with closed captioning. Sasha led Nicky away to the kitchen before the commercial break to grab another drink for himself, and to watch Nicky sit at the kitchen island and laugh hysterically into his hands. 

“You’re all right?” Sasha asked. 

“Yeah, I just—” Nicky wiped the tears from his eyes. He looked at Sasha, grinning like he almost never did when there were other people around, his cheeks ready to devour his eyes and his smile so, so bright. 

Sasha brought his drink over to Nicky. “What? You’re allergic to bad tv now? It’s so _bad_ , Nicky.”

Nicky laughed again and nodded. “I know. I know, it’s really bad.” He looked at Sasha and there were no words, not in any of the languages Sasha knew, for his face. It was more than those little but important words like _happy_ or _content_. The closest Sasha could manage were his memories of a few nights when they went out for a big dinner and got a table in a quiet corner, and Nicky relaxed enough to slouch a little bit in his chair and smile off into the distance, like he knew he had eaten too much but he had enjoyed it too much to regret a single bite.

“Hey,” Sasha said. “Come upstairs with me for a minute.”

That look on Nicky’s face faded a little. “What? Why? There’s still like a half-hour to the end of the show.”

“Yeah, I know, but maybe I want to blow you before the rose ceremony.”

Nicky looked at his watch and offered Sasha his hand. Sasha fell in love all over again. 

Upstairs in their bedroom, Sasha left Nicky at the bed and went to the closet, then came back with a ring box in his hand. Of course, Nicky was already undoing his fly when Sasha came back holding the box. They stood across from each other for a long moment, then Nicky zipped up his jeans again and sat on the bed.

“Okay,” Nicky said.

Sasha had the box in his hand. He opened it and peeked at the ring inside, away from where Nicky could see it, hoping against every rational thought that maybe it would tell him what to say? Thankfully, the ring didn’t actually do that because then they would have some real fucking problems. 

“Sasha.” Nicky’s voice pulled him out of his own thoughts. “Sasha. Do you want to marry me? Do you—” Sasha glanced up because Nicky sounded choked up, in that moment. “Do you actually want to do this? Because—don’t ask me unless you _want_ to ask me. Unless you—”

“No, no, Nicky, it’s not that.” Sasha crossed their room to where Nicky was sitting at the foot of their bed. After a second where Sasha wondered just how stupid he would look, he fucking committed and kneeled in front of Nicky, down on both knees and leaning up on the bed. “No, it’s not that, it’s never been that I don’t want to, it’s—” Sasha took a breath. 

“Our life, all our years together, where we were only together a few months at a time, always going from one thing to the next—Nicky, it didn’t feel like waiting to be with you. I’ve never felt like I was _waiting_ to be married to you. You’ve been mine my whole life, Nicky, my _whole life_ , you are the one. You’re my life. Prince Nicklas, would you please marry me?”

Nicky nodded and whispered the smallest, quietest, “Yes,” Sasha had ever heard from him. 

“Okay, thank you,” Sasha said, feeling strangely dazed and stupid like anything could come out of his mouth at any moment. “Would you accept this ring that has been certified as absolutely not haunted or cursed?”

“What?” Nicky laughed. “Shut up, just put it on my fucking hand. How much more cursed can I get, married to you?”

“I am the most handsome demon you could have ever dreamed,” Sasha assured him. “You’re so lucky to be with me.” Sasha slipped the ring on his finger and then shook his head. “Shit, our engagement is off to a wild fucking start.”

Nicky had his hands in his lap, staring at the ring on his hand now, a thick platinum band with a sapphire set in the center. “You just had this lying around in your belt drawer?” Nicky asked. “I have one for you, too, with my scarves.”

“ _What_? I’ve been stealing your scarves all winter and I didn’t find it there.”

“My heavy scarves. You’ve been stealing my light ones because this winter’s so mild.”

“Bad move, giving away your hiding place.” Sasha rose up from the floor and went to dig around in the closet until he found another ring box, buried between layers of scarves.

“No, now it means I can go back to using the other hiding places, because you’ll always look there first,” Nicky said. “Or we’ll just never get each other gifts again.”

Nicky tried to tug at Sasha’s t-shirt, to get him to sit next to him on the bed, but Sasha went down on his knees again and held out the box. “Changed my mind, I like presents, hand it over.”

“I’m glad the most patriotic either of us will ever get seems to be in our choice of gemstones,” Nicky said as he opened the box and held out the ring to Sasha. “Well?”

Sasha looked up. “Aren’t you going to ask _me_?”

“You absolute shit,” Nicky laughed. 

“Don’t _I_ get a beautiful engagement speech I can tell our grandchildren about, right before they kill us to move up in the order of succession? Also, can we skip straight to having grandchildren and let someone else raise our children? It sounds so exhausting.”

“Sasha.” 

“Right, sorry, you were being romantic.” 

Of course Nicky’s little engagement speech had to start with a long-suffering sigh. He smiled, then, and demanded Sasha’s hands so he could hold him and the ring, too. 

And then Nicky stayed silent. 

“What?” Sasha asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what to say.” Nicky kept his head bowed, his hands clutching Sasha’s, but his eyes lowered so he couldn’t meet Sasha’s face. “It’s all—this is why I couldn’t be a real prince, why I hope I never have to do what Kris and my mother do. I just—I’m not good with words the way they are, the way you are. It’s why I could never—I still can’t say why it’s so important to me that I marry you when we’ve been as good as married all these years. I can’t say—I don’t know why you’re so much to me. You just are. I don’t feel like myself unless I’m with you, and what a stupid, needy thing to say, but that’s that.” Nicky turned over Sasha’s hand and placed the ring in his palm. “Would you please marry me? Would you believe that I love you more than anyone, and I want to be married to you, and I want to put up with the living hell that will be our royal wedding, so everyone knows that you’re mine?”

“Yeah,” Sasha said softly. “Yeah. Yes. Yes, I believe you. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Sasha’s ring was a thinner band with a ruby set in the center, something that he could actually wear together with a wedding ring at some point, as opposed to the literal boulder one of his ancestors had set into a band decades ago that now sat on Nicky’s hand. 

“Do you like it?” Nicky asked. 

“Yeah. I like you more, though.”

“I like you, too.” 

Sasha watched Nicky’s face again, the soft smile and the blush on his cheeks and his neck, before he leaned up and kissed him. 

“September,” Sasha said. “Moscow in September. That’s enough time to scrape together a royal wedding, right?”

Nicky nodded and lifted his hands to Sasha’s face, pulling Sasha in for another kiss. “That’ll be twelve years since I moved to Moscow to play at Dynamo with you.”

“No. No it hasn’t. Nicky. Nicky, you can’t _tell me_ that. Oh my god. We’re so old.”

Nicky punched Sasha in the shoulder, a lot softer than Sasha knew he could. “It’ll be _four_ years this spring since Kuzya was married in Chelyabinsk, and you made fun of me for being old then— _now_ you’re just realizing that you’re an old man?”

“Look, I can be an idiot, too, sometimes.”

“Oh, only sometimes.” Nicky kissed him again. “Should we go downstairs and tell them?”

“Yeah, let’s see the rose ceremony, tell everyone, then kick everyone out. I promised to blow you, at least.”

“You forgot almost everyone downstairs lives here.”

“Well, then they’re getting a show tonight.”

When they returned to the living room, the show was still on and everyone was entranced by the tense music and the bachelor handing out roses to women one at a time. Sasha cleared his throat and asked, “Could we pause the show for a moment?”

“It’s almost the end,” Kuzya said without looking away.

“Really? You too?” Sasha asked in Russian. He got a room full of _shush_ for his trouble.

Nicky took his hand and linked their fingers together. “We can wait. We’ve waited this long.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sasha sighed. 

*

Proposing in January was excellent timing on Nicky’s part, because they still had 40 games to play that season and it was the perfect excuse to remove themselves completely from planning a royal wedding in Moscow, or at least minimize their involvement to answering texts from their brothers.

 

KRIS: Your in-laws want to know if you mind getting dressed in the cathedral’s bridal suite.

Yes this is a real question that has already leaked to the press and I’ve fired too many people today to assure you I’m not joking.

NICKY: yes ok

call it the guest suite not the bridal suite

KRIS: Thank you for telling me how to communicate with the press and foreign heads of state, hockey man.

 

MISHA: do you want a bachelor party

SASHA: no

MISHA: how many people don’t you want at your bachelor party

SASHA: <20

MISHA: bath house first then: bar or restaurant 

SASHA: restaurant 

it’s nicky’s bachelor party too

MISHA: you want a joint bachelor party?????? and less than 20 people????

SASHA: do you want to leave his brother to organize one for him

MISHA: hahahahahahaahahahaha he’s your brother now too 

SASHA: AND YOURS

IDIOT 

 

KRIS: Misha says your tour of the city is down to two hours

NICKY: google says william and kate only had to parade for 30 min

KRIS: William and Kate aren’t Russian and London is the size of a fingernail 

NICKY: i want the capitals’ mascot at the wedding

his name is slapshot he is an eagle 

KRIS: No

NICKY: slapshot will be my best man

 

MISHA: after you leave the cathedral the two of you will release a pair of eagles

SASHA: no????????????

MISHA: their names are natasha and pierre like in war and peace 

SASHA: we’re eloping

MISHA: mama says if you do you’ll honeymoon at the hague 

 

KRIS: Did you pick a wedding ring yet?

Nicklas.

Pick a ring.

Don’t make me call you.

Pick a ring.

Pick up your phone.

Pick a ring or I will come to your next game.

NICKY: page 65

KRIS: Really? With Sasha’s coloring?

 

MISHA: where is your honeymoon

SASHA: maldives

MISHA: what about sochi

SASHA: what about go fuck yourself

changed our mind, bora bora

MISHA: nicky’s mother offered a resort on svalbard

SASHA: resort = prison?

MISHA: you’ll find out 

 

KRIS: You have to pick a Swede for your best man.

NICKY: i don’t have to do anything

KRIS: Mama objects to Mike Green 1) Canadian 2) hair 

NICKY: she’ll also object to his personality so get used to it

KRIS: What about Zetterberg or Nylander

NICKY: yes all three of them sound good thanks kris so many good ideas

 

MISHA: your best man?

SASHA: alex semin

MISHA: nicky koala is having three

SASHA: my husband does not have three friends 

our 20 adopted hockey sons don’t count

malkin is my second

MISHA: so far all your russian hockey friends are dodgers and deserters

SASHA: and fun

zhenya kuznetsov 

MISHA: thank fuck 

*

It was probably for the best that they wouldn’t have the Cup with them at their wedding.

Nicky wasn’t exactly sure why it was “for the best,” but the Rangers knocked them out in the second round and they weren’t going to _have_ the Cup anyway, so this was the platitude Sasha and the team used to convince Nicky to accept a second-best version of their wedding.

In case the newspapers didn’t have enough wedding gossip to fuel them, Russia knocked Sweden out of the first round of playoffs at Worlds that spring. Neither Nicky nor Sasha were playing, but it was still some sort of omen for _(INSERT NATIONALIST BULLSHIT HERE)_. They stayed home from Worlds and napped on their couch covered by a blanket with the shape, weight, and snuffling of Gerta, a German Shepherd puppy who liked to fall asleep on them to the sound of hockey on the big tv. She cuddled better than any medal they had won before. 

*

There were two weddings on their wedding day: the civic ceremony (15 people) and the cathedral ceremony (hundreds of people). Nicky had taken to referring to them as _the wedding_ and _that fucking nightmare_ , and it was hard to argue with such a catchy naming convention. 

The civic ceremony was in one of Moscow’s government buildings, with only Sasha, Nicky, their parents, their brothers, and their six best men. Oh, and two photographers, who by this point in their lives were nearly invisible to Sasha because otherwise he couldn’t take a breath without worrying he looked like an idiot doing it. 

They were pronounced married and they kissed to the sound of Malkin and Greenie announcing it was time to drink; all six best men took out their matching flasks to toast the happy couple and themselves for being the smartest people in the room and “packing appropriately,” even Michael Nylander, who at his age had apparently run out of fucks to give. Sasha rolled his eyes and cupped Nicky’s face, kissing him again until Sasha’s mother, the Queen of Russia, told him to save it for later, and by later she meant the hotel, not the cathedral in front of God and hundreds of people. 

Nicky’s mother announced that, finally, they could get to the _real_ ceremony. Kris clapped Sasha on the shoulder and guided his and Nicky’s parents to the rear of the room while Nicky signed their license. 

Sasha signed alongside Nicky, then stood up straight and kissed him again. He pulled away and saw that Nicky still had his eyes closed, his smile bright enough to be burned in Sasha’s memory forever.

“We’re fucking married,” Nicky whispered. 

Sasha agreed with another kiss. “We’re fucking married.”

Misha put his giant hands on their shoulders and started to gently nudge them to the door. “There’s no fucking until we go to church so come on, let’s go.”

Sasha died inside and demanded a flask from someone, anyone, so he could go on living.

The most memorable part of their nightmare wedding at the cathedral was at the very end of the centuries-long ceremony when Sasha got to kiss Nicky in front of countless people (in person and watching on tv). The better part was when they ran down the aisle outside to the carriage waiting to take them away from everyone in that fucking place. Sasha and Nicky climbed into the carriage for their tour of the city while Slapshot the mascot beat his drum outside the cathedral and a trainer released Natasha and Pierre the eagles into the sky.

Sasha sat back in the carriage and closed his eyes, and he smiled when Nicky took his hand. He turned his head and opened his eyes to Nicky smiling at him. 

“Hello,” Nicky said.

“Hello,” Sasha replied. 

Nicky laughed and edged closer to Sasha. “Kris stole my phone because he’s an asshole who said it’s undignified to take a selfie at my own wedding.”

“My phone’s in my left pocket,” Sasha said as he waved to the crowds lining the avenue. “Let’s take a thousand fucking selfies.” He stopped waving to do it himself, handing the phone to Nicky and then putting his hands on Nicky’s cheeks to pull him in for a kiss. 

Nicky brushed his lips over Sasha’s again, then whispered, “Don’t make fun of me, but—I can’t wait to be home. I can’t wait for our honeymoon, but I can’t wait to be _home_ with you.”

“I’m always here, so you’re always home,” Sasha said, and kissed him again. 

*

Nicky had lived in Russia for—

Nicky was in Russia, drunk at their wedding reception, and too drunk to remember how long he had lived in Russia. Was it three seasons in the RSL? Now the KHL? Was it three seasons?

Whatever, the point was that he had spent the prime years of his teenage stupidity living in Moscow with Sasha, playing hockey with him and a team of terrible old men who enabled them in their worst drinking, and yet he was _sure_ he had never been as drunk then as he was now. He was sure because it looked like Kris and Sasha were having a polite, civil conversation.

Sasha and little Zhenya had snuck off to the kitchen of the hotel where the big reception was held, hoping to sneak a few entrees back to the head table before Nicky fell asleep at three o’clock in the afternoon on his wedding day. He remembered, faintly, that there was still the smaller reception that night, which would have dinner and more dancing, and then tomorrow they would have to crawl out of their toilets to host another reception lunch and dinner for almost everyone they knew. Maybe they shouldn’t have waited to get married; maybe this would have been easier to handle at 20 than 27. Maybe they shouldn’t have left Gerta at home with a dog sitter—maybe she would have been better than Sasha at finding the elusive steak entree. Poor Gerta wouldn’t be in any of the Moscow photos because they were taking too many flights that week for her big puppy body. 

There was Sasha, two plates stacked with food, still talking to Kris. Kris had a hand firmly on Sasha’s shoulder and was talking, but Sasha didn’t look upset. He didn’t look—he didn’t get that line between his eyebrows when he was listening to complete bullshit that was quietly making him furious. No, Sasha was probably nearly as drunk as he was, and he looked thoughtful, and he was nodding along with Kris. After what seemed like _forever_ because those entrees were still in Sasha’s hands and not in Nicky’s mouth, Kris reached in and embraced Sasha, careful not to disturb the plates in his hands. Sasha stood on the dance floor for a moment, then began the walk back to Nicky, rushing when he remembered he had _food_ with him. 

“Big Zhenya was the distraction, little Zhenya was the thief,” Sasha laughed as he sat down. “Except we’ve all had too much to drink so the—the—whatever, the plate person running the show, he yelled at us, _IT’S FOR THE PRINCES, GIVE THEM WHATEVER THEY WANT_ , and we left big Zhenya back there because they yelled in his face so now he’s in love.”

“Nice,” Nicky said. Sasha held out a dumpling to feed to Nicky, but Nicky had already grabbed some from the plate and shoved them in his mouth. It took a moment for his champagne-and-vodka-sloshed brain to realize Sasha was laughing at him and pulling out his phone to take a picture. 

“What?” Nicky was a little sure he had food all over his lips, but Sasha was laughing too hard to say anything. Nicky picked up a dumpling and smushed it in Sasha’s face, really rubbing it into his beard before Sasha caught Nicky’s hand and bit one of his fingers. “This is dumb, I hate this game,” Nicky laughed. “What did Kris want?”

“What, Kris? What did he want?” Nicky pawed at the steak on Sasha’s plate until Sasha cut a piece and held it out for him. “Nothing, just to say congratulations. Good luck. Remind me you have a two-drink limit and we probably passed that in the carriage a thousand years ago.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Nicky said.

Nicky propped his elbow on the table and leaned on his hand, mouth half open so Sasha could sneak him another small piece of steak. Nicky closed his eyes for a moment and soon felt a hand in his hair, smoothing it out and pushing it over his ear, the way he liked to wear it. 

“He said thank you for taking care of you,” Sasha said quietly, somewhere in the noise of the reception where Nicky could only sort of hear him. “I didn’t know what to say. Don’t worry, just the usual wedding stuff—that he can’t say he’s never seen you happier because it’s a lie. We’ve always made each other happy. I asked him if he was going to do the big brother threat, you know, _hurt him and I’ll kill you_ , and he said you could do that yourself.”

Nicky opened his eyes to Sasha’s arm out, his hand still in his hair, gently cupping his head. 

“Hurt you,” Sasha said with a little smile. “Like I’d ever dare.” 

“I thought so.” Nicky shut his eyes again; sometimes, he had to shut his eyes to appreciate how Sasha’s voice sounded now that they were older, now that his hair was greying faster than they imagined, because it was a voice more familiar to Nicky than even his own. Nicky could listen to his voice for hours—years, even, maybe even the rest of his life. Nicky smiled to himself as he caught Sasha’s attention again. “We can always hurt each other next year, if we play against each other at the World Cup of Hockey.” 

Sasha dropped his hand immediately. “You bring that nonsense to our wedding? Really?”

“I suppose you should divorce me,” Nicky said. “While the ink is still fresh.”

“We’ll see how I feel after dinner,” Sasha said. “We’ll stop by the registry and pick up divorce forms, just in case. They’ll open again for the Prince of Moscow and his husband.”

Nicky laughed and closed his eyes, thinking of how nice that sounded. 

*

They never sat together on team flights because even they had a limit as to how much time they could spend pressed next to each other in a 24-hour period; team flights and team bus rides were a good time to decompress and reset. 

Of course, if Nicky didn’t sit with Sasha, he rotated their oversized parasitic hockey sons in and out of the seat next to his, and not a single one was brave enough to wake Nicky once they landed in Winnipeg at midnight (1 AM back in Montreal, where they had just left). 

“Come back here, traitors,” Sasha hissed as he struggled into his coat. “Andre! Come back here! He likes you best!”

“You’re his husband!” Tom hissed back. “Papa likes Jojo best. Jojo!”

Jojo dodged all of them, zigging and zagging through the plane like a magician. “My wife just called,” he said. Only Sasha noticed he was holding up a protein bar, not a phone.

“Andre, go,” Sasha said. “You were sitting with him, go wake up Nicky.”

Andre looked to Latts, who, god help them, gave Andre a nod of encouragement. Andre lifted his chin and proudly (bravely, stupidly) said, “I don’t see a ring on this finger.” 

“And you never will,” Sasha promised. “See if I don’t cut off all your hands before the playoffs and then _no one_ gets a ring.”

All at once the three of them, Tom and Mike and Andre, bolted off the plane and knocked into Holtby hard enough to knock the glasses off his poor face. “Oh, come on,” Braden sighed. “I need those. I’m tired.”

“SORRY WE LOVE YOU,” either Tom or Mike called out from the staircase off the plane, because they were good (if evil) boys, and Nicky and Sasha had totally failed at raising Andre.

Holtby slipped his glasses on again and looked to Sasha with something like sympathy, a wise old man who had a whole two years on Mike. “Was that _sorry, we love you_ or _sorry that we love you_?”

“The second one, definitely,” Sasha sighed. “Can you—”

“Oh, the bus is here, you better hurry, bye,” Braden said with his gentlest, most Canadian expediency in getting the fuck out. 

Sasha watched even the coaching staff avoid eye contact with him and rush out, muttering incoherently about getting bags out of storage and arriving at the hotel on time. He turned back to Nicky, still sound asleep in his seat with both his coat and his airplane blanket over him, his grey hat pulled over his eyes like a mask. 

“Nicky, come on, we’re in Winnipeg, time to go,” Sasha whispered. He reached in and gently, _gently_ , nudged Nicky’s shoulder; it barely woke him. “Nicky, the bus is here. Once we’re on the bus, we’re practically at the hotel, and then we can sleep some more. Come on, before the plane takes you back to Montreal, or leaves you here to freeze.” 

“What?” Nicky lifted the hat over his eyes, blinked a few times, then looked at Sasha. “What? Are we home?”

“...Winnipeg.”

Nicky’s eyes narrowed, then he put his head back again and sighed. “Okay. Leave me here. I quit hockey. I’ll see you at home.”

“Oh, sure, put us out 30 million dollars, just when I was about to…” Sasha paused for a long moment, long enough that Nicky peeked out at him again as he waited for the punchline. He finally sighed in defeat. “Please, Koala, it’s one in the fucking morning, let’s get on the fucking bus.”

“Koala?”

Nicky sat up and Sasha turned around; they thought they were alone, but Carly had apparently been trying to sneak out behind Sasha when _koala_ caught his interest. 

“You didn’t hear anything,” Nicky said. “If I get a single fucking koala for Christmas, I know who to blame.”

“Haha, not me,” Carly said. “I’m just here, walking on by, leaving the plane, getting on the bus, I’m—I’m not even _on_ this team right now, I was never drafted. I was dead all along.” Carly looked to Sasha. “Please, I have a baby, don’t hurt me.”

Nicky finally put on his coat, though Sasha thought it was less out of a desire to keep warm than something to do as he glared Carly off the plane and possibly out of existence. 

“You’re so _cranky_ after naps, I don’t know how you don’t have more hat tricks,” Sasha said.

“It’s the end of a long day, Andre was boring me with photos on Instagram—”

Sasha took Nicky’s hand and led him off the plane. He doubled back for a moment and grabbed a couple of waters from the kitchen up front and handed one to Nicky. “Come on, almost to the bus, almost to the hotel.” 

They stepped outside onto the top of the staircase and the wind whipped past them, pushing Sasha’s hair out of his eyes and sending a chill through his open jacket. Suddenly, Nicky was tucked in against him, blocking Sasha from the wind and buttoning up his own jacket before he reached to pull Sasha’s closed. 

“No, it’s fine, the plane was too warm anyway.” 

“And your shirt’s half open,” Nicky muttered as he buttoned Sasha’s shirt. “What do you _do_ on the plane while I’m sleeping?”

“Sleeping, too, just with my shirt off.”

“Oh, sure, like that wouldn’t have been on Twitter already.”

“Maybe I have a secret husband on the team.”

“Then you should sleep in _his_ room at the hotel and let me have the whole bed for myself, or sleep in the bathtub, Sasha. You should be on the bus teasing _him_.”

“You’re a little cuter than him,” Sasha said. “Just a little. Now look to the bottom of the stairs, we’re about to be on Instagram.”

“I just woke up, it has to be four o’clock in the morning, why are there cameras?”

Sasha wrapped his arms around Nicky’s waist and kissed his nose. He watched Nicky scrunch up his whole face as he looked torn between showing Sasha affection (great) in front of a camera (bad) and feeling joy (yay) when he’d been woken up from a nap (very bad). 

Nicky finally cracked up. He hid his face in Sasha’s coat, then looked out at the camera. Sasha kissed Nicky’s cheek and checked to be sure Nicky didn’t actually look like he was dying, then held out a hand to the open air.

“GOOD NIGHT WINNIPEG!” Sasha yelled out. 

“God, you’re loud,” Nicky sighed. “Let’s go, you promised me a hotel. My contract promised me a hotel. Everyone promised me hotels and for some reason, I’m not in one right now.”

“Right. Some reason.” 

Nicky looked over his shoulder and shot Sasha a little smirk before he headed down the stairs. Sasha grinned and followed him. 

*

In Nicky’s earliest memory, Sasha wore stupid little grey pleated shorts and a stupid little white shirt and a stupid little red bowtie, and Nicky knew they were stupid because he was dressed exactly the same way. All five of the boys in the two royal families, from Nicky the youngest to Seryozha the eldest, were gathered in the library of the summer palace in Gävle for their annual summer photo, all of them in some variation of pleated pants and bowties.

Nicky was tired of standing, so he leaned against Sasha. Their mothers encouraged them to hold hands for the photo and Nicky didn’t mind. Sasha held his hand, then wrapped both his arms around Nicky and pulled him closer. There was laughter and talking around Nicky, but he didn’t pay attention until Sasha’s arms tightened around him.

“Leave him alone, he’s mine,” Sasha said, loud and right above Nicky’s head. There was some scolding after that, because Nicky was always being scolded and apparently Sasha was, too, but Nicky tightened his arms around Sasha and didn’t let go.

*

In Nicky’s latest memory, it was New Year’s Eve in Columbus, Ohio. They lost an afternoon game in Raleigh, then immediately took a plane to Columbus for a game against the Blue Jackets in two days. The team rented out a restaurant for a party at ten o’clock so the guys had time to unwind and check in with their families before responsibly drinking in the new year together.

Sasha called his family as soon as they landed, just as the party in Moscow was reaching its third or fourth wind. As they waited for their luggage to be moved from the plane to their bus, Sasha shoved his Facetime call at Nicky. Nicky smiled at Sasha’s very drunk father, Sasha’s mother audible in the background of wherever they were in the palace. 

“Happy new year! You take care of my beautiful boy, Koala,” Sasha’s father said in Russian. 

“Papa, look at him blush,” Sasha laughed. 

“I make no promises,” Nicky replied. “Your son’s so embarrassing. Can I trade him for Misha? Is it too late? We’ve only been married a few months. I can say I made a mistake because they look so similar.”

“Wow, Nicky, fucking _wow_ ,” Sasha said in English. “Don’t think I’ll let you forget that.”

“Yes, I’ll call your mother right now, wish her a happy new year and let her know we’re trading sons before the deadline,” Sasha’s father laughed. “And Misha’s worse at embarrassing both of you! You got lucky it’s Sasha you married.”

“Maybe I did, but don’t tell Sasha, it’ll just go to his head,” Nicky said as he playfully shoved a hand in Sasha’s face and pushed him out of frame. 

Back at the hotel, they took part in their fun monthly roadtrip game _No Seriously Where Did We Pack the Lube_. On the last day of 2015, Nicky tipped Sasha back onto the bed, undoing the hotel robe that Sasha had only enjoyed for about five or six minutes before it had to come the fuck off. 

“Are you sure you want to do this,” Sasha asked as Nicky licked and sucked marks against Sasha’s neck.

A weird fucking question, but Nicky brought his hips in against Sasha’s, the slick from their cocks smearing against their stomachs. “When have I _ever_ not been sure about fucking you?” 

“I just—since you’ve thought all this time that Misha was better looking than me. You wouldn’t joke about that with your own _father-in-law_ —”

“Shut up and turn over,” Nicky said. Sasha laughed at him until Nicky pulled him onto his stomach, his thigh spreading Sasha’s legs wide beneath him. “Maybe now I don’t want to look at you.”

He did, though. Nicky slicked up his fingers and pushed two inside Sasha. He watched the muscles in Sasha’s back move as he fucked himself on Nicky’s fingers, Sasha turning his head and gasping for Nicky. What an absolute fucking lie, like he could ever not look at Sasha, like some part of him wasn’t always dying of thirst when it came to kissing him, fucking him, sucking his cock—anything Sasha wanted, anything Nicky could do to him. 

Nicky pulled Sasha up on his knees and brought him up to his chest, turning Sasha’s head to kiss him. He grinned as Sasha broke the kiss and gasped at the twist of fingers inside him. Nicky put his hand between his shoulder blades and pushed him down again, Sasha grabbing the headboard as Nicky eased himself inside, his hips flush against Sasha’s for a long moment. 

“Nicky, move, please,” Sasha whined. 

It was fucking embarrassing at this point, when he and Sasha had been fucking for almost half their lives, but every time they were like this, Nicky couldn’t believe he was there. _He_ had his hands on Sasha’s hips, his short nails and fingertips were leaving marks in Sasha’s skin. He leaned over Sasha and wrapped his arm around Sasha’s massive chest, the sweat prickling on his back and his chest, his hair sweaty and curling like they were taking shifts on the ice. Sasha was groaning and gasping, making an embarrassing amount of noise for a mid-afternoon in a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and it was Nicky that did it. 

Sasha dropped to his elbows, meeting Nicky on every stroke. Nicky could faintly hear Sasha’s sharp cries get louder as Nicky fucked into him harder, faster, until he came inside Sasha. Still dazed, Nicky pulled out and pushed three fingers into Sasha, fucking him hard again. 

“Come on,” Nicky said. He pressed a kiss to Sasha’s shoulder and felt Sasha tense around him, close to the edge. A glint of metal caught Nicky’s eye—it was Sasha’s left hand clenched in the sheets, his knuckles white, his wedding and engagement rings sitting plainly on his hand. “Come on, Sasha, you’re my husband, do what I say and fucking _come_ already,” and that did it, that made Sasha laugh and moan, at once, and come on the perfectly nice hotel bathrobe that Nicky wasn’t going to let him wear much, anyway. 

“You’re… the worst,” Sasha gasped, and laughed, and god, Nicky would do anything for that obnoxious laugh he loved more than anything in the fucking world. 

Sasha cleaned them off with the robe and pushed it off the bed and onto the floor, then lay down on the bed and pulled Nicky with him, chest-to-chest. The moment he felt Sasha’s fingers combing through his hair, Nicky closed his eyes and exhaled—his hair was getting so long, practically to his shoulders, but he couldn’t bring himself to trim it, not when Sasha loved to run his fingers through Nicky’s hair like this. 

“Halifax was our first New Year’s together, wasn’t it?” Sasha asked. “The first one we actually spent together. You went to the Sweden game, then you came to see me play, then we ran off to see some fireworks downtown.”

“We were idiots,” Nicky said. “That was the year someone on your team told us the drinking age in Nova Scotia was fifteen and we fucking believed them.”

“Look, our mobiles were very slow and terrible back then, and we didn’t jump on them to check every little thing like we did now.” 

“We knew for _weeks_ , Sasha, we were just stupid.”

“Us? _Us_? _We_ were stupid teenagers once? I won’t believe it.” 

Nicky leaned in and gently bit the side of Sasha’s neck. He yelped in surprise and tugged at Nicky’s hair. 

“Asshole.” 

“What’s that thing they say for New Year’s? Start as you mean to go on?”

“Oh, okay,” Sasha said as he tugged at Nicky’s hair again.

“Start as _I_ mean to go on, which is with very short hair that you can’t tug anymore, if you’re just going to abuse the privilege of—”

“No, don’t you dare.” Sasha pulled back Nicky’s head, his fingers twisted in Nicky’s hair. “Like you don’t love this.”

“You’ll never prove it,” Nicky laughed as he writhed under Sasha. 

“It’s all right, I have all the proof I need.” Sasha leaned in to return the favor, kissing and sucking marks into Nicky’s neck where they would be in plain view for tonight and their interviews tomorrow. “I have proof, Nicky. I have you.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Nicky muttered. He tried to twist away from Sasha to catch his lips in a kiss, digging his hand into Sasha’s hair. “Love you. Love you for running away to North America with me.” 

At that, Sasha scoffed. Right in Nicky’s face. Then he kissed Nicky again and smiled. 

“Like I was ever going to do anything else. Like there’s anyone on this whole earth as good to me as you.”

“Oh,” Nicky said. “Well. Fine. Outshoot me, like fucking always.”

“Are you _jealous_ I came up with prettier words than you? Nicky. Oh my god. See, you _are_ the best.”

“Stop kissing my ass, I already married you.” Nicky looked away, trying to hide his smirk with Sasha’s lips centimeters away from him. “I take it back, I hate you forever.” 

“Too bad, Prince Nicklas, there’s about a hundred thousand bootleg royal wedding commemorative plates and mugs with our faces on them that say otherwise.” 

“ _Well_ , if the fucking bootleg plates have a say in all this—”

Sasha kissed him again. “Love you, too. Can’t wait to see you drink a whole Corona Light and really fucking lose it tonight.”

Nicky did try to scrape together another clever retort, but Sasha—he was staring at Nicky with a soft smile, running his thumb along Nicky’s rings, and damn him, honestly, for being the romantic one and leaving Nicky breathless. 

“Kiss me again, please,” Nicky said. “Tell me we’ll be all right forever.”

Sasha nodded and kissed him again. “Anything you want, Nicky. Anything you want.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/screamlet) \+ [reblog](http://screamlet.tumblr.com/post/158722995566/)


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